FilmFemme

This is a long delayed posting of a much underseen film that did not get the recognition I believe it deserved during awards season.  As a matter of fact, looking back over its awards history, I am really saddened that writer /director Courtney Hunt went unrecognized in all of the big competitions.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

Frozen River is a dreary and cold movie (I feel like I’ve described this before…) about a middle-aged woman named Ray (Melissa Leo) who finds herself alone raising two sons in the unforgiving and desperate winter of upstate New York.  Her husband has abandoned them and taken the last of their savings that was supposed to go towards payment on their new doublewide.  With something that doesn’t so much qualify as inner strength as it does what any underemployed single mother must do to get through the day, Ray ventures out to find her husband, but all that’s left of him in town is his car.  In pursuit of the vehicle, Ray meets a young Native American woman named Lila (Misty Upham) who had taken the car to be abandoned and insists that she will buy it because she knows someone who is always looking for cars with button release trunks.  Though Ray flatly refuses to sell the car, she does agree to go on a smuggling mission with Lila across the Canadian border.  Though dangerous, the money is too good to pass up and Ray and Lila form a tentative partnership smuggling illegals, mostly of East-Asian descent across the Canadian border into New York.  They work together begrudgingly but the risks are outweighed by the rewards: for Ray, the new doublewide on the horizon and for Lila, money to give to her mother-in-law, who has forcibly taken her infant son to raise.

Frozen River is not what you might call an uplifting movie, though it isn’t without its messages of hope and understanding.  Instead, it is darkly poignant in its portrayal of women on the brink, struggling to bring the best lives they can to their children.  Ray is one of the most multi-faceted and uncomfortably sympathetic characters that I have encountered.  Though the undeniable protagonist, she is far from perfect, harboring and acting upon racial prejudices, leaving her children alone while she drives a car across a river with no contingency plan.  You almost don’t want to like her because you don’t know (and never will) how she let it get this bad.  But you do.  You really do. 

Hunt didn’t work with a large budget or the best equipment but she did work with an extraordinary cast.  Of course Leo brings a three dimensional radiance to a complex, carefully determined character, but the supporting cast is also quite notable.  Upham’s performance is muted but sure, young  James Reilly who plays four year old Ricky who everyone is trying to protect is playful and natural (not to mention adorable) and as the older son, T.J., Charlie McDermott brings a maturity and humor to his role that echoes the best of Paul Dano or Jesse Eisenberg.  Hunt’s incorporation of the bleak setting is also tantamount to the mood of the film.  White snow reflects brightly, but is never quite clean.  Breath hangs in the air and mingles with smoke.  Ice crunches under tires.  Sweaters ride up to reveal bare skin.  Bodies move more slowly and everything seems to creak with effort and chills.

One of the most interesting things to me that I heard from Hunt when I saw her speak was that audiences almost without exception, try to make a connection between Ray and a male figure in the film, even when none is ever implied or explored.  When I heard her say this, I realized that I too was guilty of this.  As much as we don’t want to, we are conditioned to expect that a man is going to save her from her depressing and seemingly hopeless existence.

When I think about the movies that were honored and lauded this year (this isn’t to say the Frozen River wasn’t recognized with many nominations and great reviews [like this one]), it’s no surprise that they center on men: Slumdog Millionaire (young boy in desperate situation makes good, wins girl ), Milk (gay activist is killed by desperate homophobe), The Wrestler (lonely aging wrestler is desperate for money) – all of these films were must more loudly praised.  The conclusion that I come to from this is that the desperation of women, like Ray and Lila, is almost expected.  Women are mothers and the plight of the single mother has been done to death (maybe because there are 10 million of them in the U.S. alone…I’m thinking there aren’t quite as many aging professional wrestlers) so it’s not the stuff that drama is made of.  No, audiences, critics and awards committees would rather recognize male drama because the male condition is such that a man’s desperation seems more desperate because it mere existence means that the man is not living up to the demands of manhood.  Since society’s demands on women amount to nothing more than motherhood, it is expected that she will feel some sense of desperation (I know I would).  I can’t say whether this is right or wrong, in terms of awards politics,  but Frozen River attests to the struggle of women in its plot as well as in the stories of its actors and its filmmaker.  All of these women display a determination that, while maybe expected, ought to be recognized.  So here I am, recognizing it.  I don’t have a fancy gold man, but I do have a “thanks.”

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