Frozen River
Frozen River stars Melissa Leo and Misty Upham but almost as importantly stars the eastern winter as a backdrop for the bleak, chilling and inhospitable future facing a trailer park single mother. Ray Eddy (Leo) is abandoned by her gamblers anonymous husband who has fallen off the wagon and taken off with the deposit on their double wide dream home. She can barely afford the popcorn and tang she uses to sustain her two boys earning part time minimum wage, but she does have a lot of moxie. Oh yeah and a revolver. While T.J. (Charlie McDermott) her teenager finds a source of income in credit card fraud, Ray discovers a way to make easy cash via an uneasy association with a first nations woman named Lila (Upham). Together they traffic human cargo across the St Lawrence River where it’s bounded on both the US and Canadian sides by the Mohawk reserve. Frozen River was originally a short film by Courtney Hunt also starring Leo who her perfectly personifies the desperation and determination of her character who soon discovers what Lila already knows, that the money is only easy at first. The danger involved actually forces the two women to make difficult but possibly unselfish choices.