sergelamarche The story is crazy from the start. Small injustices leading to more crimes with a pair of very silly women. Not much of it can be true. The mohawks are known for their traffic of cigarettes and other drugs, sold tax-free. Bad enough as is. River crossing is not believable when the icy road is full or water. It's not cold enough south of Québec. Could work as a comedy but did not work for me.

Sherazade A down on her luck mother of two (played to perfection by Melissa Leo) living in upstate New York, goes in search of her deadbeat husband and meets a native Indian woman (played eloquently by Misty Upham) who has just experienced a personal tragedy in possession of her husband's car. Believing he is having an affair she confronts the mysterious woman and after a brief altercation Lila (the Indian woman) gives up the vehicle then reveals a get rich quick scheme to the destitute mother as she attempts to tow her husband's vehicle back home. Protected by the confines of the Mohawk reservation which she belongs, Lila manages to avoid the law as she carries out her dangerous 'get rich quick' missions and Ray (Leo) unwillingly accepts her own "being White & invisible" camouflage to save her family from poverty and both women embark on crazy adventures together crossing the borders of the US and Canada via an unguarded frozen river.

johnnyboyz Frozen River unfolds on the cold, biting and rather inhospitable New York State Canadian-American border; a part of the continent in which huge trucks carrying their huge hauls rumble on through past toll booths and under barriers amidst the snow and ice which surrounds the locale for as far as the eye can see; the sort of place neon signs hang, limply, and unlit during the day while homes that look as if they've had little in the way of residency stand idly to the sides of roads. The film, a debut from Tenesse born writer/director Courtney Hunt, is a really pleasing, engrossing little American indie about adults in adult situations facing adult scenarios and dealing with them methodically, maturely and, above all, realistically - we are a long way from the snow-set mainstream posing of something such as Juno and the-like, a film which could only pretend to tackle a rather serious contemporary issue and trivialise such material with a bevy of brash, annoying and wholly unrealistic characters inhabiting a film more interested in entertaining you with its gift of the gab. Indeed, we are mercifully a long way from films such as Secretary and The Squid and the Whale and wholly indebted to Hunt for dragging us away from such films and back to this.We begin on a woman with an agonised expression; she is sitting alone in the coldness of the world she inhabits up against, it seems, not only the climate of her dwelling but the cold makeup of human nature. She smokes; she looks disenchanted; she is Ray Eddy and is played by Melissa Leo. Ray's world is one in which she has little in the way of money. What she dos have is a good-for-nothing gambler of a husband whom is long-gone; two, young sons; a trailer home hanging in the balance on account of the local council with their fees they demand for it and the prospect of not being able to buy a little-'un the diecast set of toy cars they so desperately want for Christmas. The Eddy family are one very much on the edge; a later altercation with a descendant of the Native American's whose land centuries ago this once was, named Lila Littlewolf (Upham), sees Ray put a bullet square into the entrance door to her trailer home, this following some aggravation – we get the feeling six months ago, it may very well have been a warning shot into the air but that sense of her being well past that point of 'warning' has arrived, that here and now at this new level of agitation is the plateau upon which she now resides.The film will come to follow these two and their uneasy alliance, an element to any film which when executed with the sort of bravado and effectiveness as is rather demonstrated here, can make for some fascinating viewing. Lila, a mere bingo house worker patrolling the floors and the player's little-to-no bingo playing activity, the film coming to reveal lives an equally dishevelled lifestyle in rather humble shack-like conditions; somebody whom is additionally devoid of a husband but very much with that out-casted, hermit-like existence similar to that of Ray. Their duty, as perpetrated by some local indigenous people whom Lila knows, is to smuggle people across the aforementioned border with what the instigators claim is within legality but was always ambiguous in its criminality, for large amounts of money; the zone through which they must journey is the titular frozen river, a stretch of icy nothingness doubling up as a moral grey zone neatly capturing the nature of Ray and Lila's activities; a zone devoid of most things and set well away from the confines of whatever passes for civilisation. Their first job, to transport an apparently untrustworthy young foreign man from place to place, sees Ray handed the gentleman's shoes before they all drive off on account it will "stop him from running away", in what is a neat, authentic touch systematically doing lots whilst doing very little.The film itself draws us into proceedings even more; the overbearing item to proceedings, or what's at stake, the fact this down-and-out family have the loss of their home on the line, something which Ray's husband practically gave away on account of his gambling habit. The film additionally makes use of Ray's infant son and his desperate pleas for a set of small, metallic cars with which he can play; Frozen River utilising such a notion or potential event without really exploiting such a child-like and innocent desire whilst keeping us wholly aware that if its lead does indeed get away with what it is she's doing, these two realities will be able to come to fruition. The film manages to have us will the lead on without ever really endorsing any criminal activity, instead, and by placing its characters into some rather harrowing situations born out of Ray's decision to engage in people trafficking, the film builds up enough of an unglamorous edge to proceedings to see it by. The culmination, of which, is an embittered and remarkably well played drama going on to cover some territory in the deftest and most capable of manners.

Rindiana Small-scale social drama that's never quite as honestly touching as it's ought to be, but still succeeds to be a solid and watchable indie product.The directing and some of the acting have a slight air of amateurishness to them, though some performances are great, and the screenplay is also rough around the edges, indeed.But the interesting setting and some of the ways the plot's handled are satisfactory as well as the pic's calm and gentle pay-off.And it's good to see socially aware American cinema for a change.6 out of 10 babies on ice