Film review: Frozen River

Director: Courtney Hunt
With: Melissa Leo and Misty Upham
Released: July 17

For the first time in Hollywood history, the movie business is less obsessed by bug-eyed aliens from other galaxies than it is by illegal aliens from other countries. Babel, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and Trade are all hung up on the idea of foreign nationals sneaking into the US. But all of these films have been set close to the nation's southern boundary. Frozen River, which was nominated for best actress and best screenplay Oscars, is the first of the bunch to look north, to an area where human trafficking from Canada is a thriving industry.

Melissa Leo stars as a part-time shop assistant who's struggling to raise two sons, despite her tireless efforts. They live in a mobile home in snowbound upstate New York, and regularly have nothing but popcorn and orangeade for breakfast and dinner. Leo has plans for them to move to a bigger trailer, but even this modest hope seems to be dashed when her husband disappears with all the money they've saved.

Assuming that his gambling addiction has resurfaced, she goes looking for him on the Mohawk reservation that hosts the district's casinos and bingo parlours. She doesn't find him, but she does learn that she can make a quick buck by teaming up with a young Mohawk woman, Misty Upham, and smuggling Asians in from Canada in the boot of her car. The border patrols never bother to stop and search white drivers, Upham assures her, but it's still a perilous undertaking—not least because they have to get the car across the eponymous frozen river on every trip.

The film delivers as a tightly plotted crime thriller, and has been championed by Quentin Tarantino, but it's also a touching, sympathetic drama about why a generally law-abiding, middle-aged mother would be drawn into human trafficking, even while she keeps reassuring herself: "I'm no criminal." Shot with the unvarnished, unglamorous look of a fly-on-the-wall documentary, it depicts the hand-to-mouth harshness of blue-collar American life with an honesty that's a world away from the average Hollywood film, but offers some optimism in Leo's never-say-die toughness.

It also delves more deeply into the issues surrounding illegal immigration than the films mentioned above, often with a dose of shrewd humour. Considering how poorly the US has treated Leo, she can hardly believe that the people she ferries across the frozen river have spent thousands of dollars on their journey. "To get here," she smirks, incredulously. "No f***ing way!"

Nicholas Barber