35/50: Frozen River

I have been wanting to see this film since it was announced. There are not too many films that choose the North Country to shoot in, but this was one of the rare ones.

Frozen River was not only shot in the Plattsburgh, NY area, but a lot of it was actually shot right across the street from my in-law's house. In fact, on a handful of occasions, you can even see their house - which is really cool.

Anyway, the fact that the film was shot in an area that I know extensively may have a bit of an effect on my opinion of the film, but either way I thought this film was amazing.

Well, Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is a parent of two children and works at the local Dollar Tree. She lives in a single-wide trailer and has been saving up her money for a new double-wide trailer. On the day of its delivery, her husband split and stole the money needed for the trailer.

As she goes out to look for him she comes across Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham) who has apparently stolen her husband's car. The two of them sort of team up and begin making money bringing illegal aliens to the United States.

The location of the city is right near Canada and when the river (or lake) is frozen, they are able to drive their car across and avoid the border. Eddy plans on doing enough runs to remake the money she needs for her double-wide.

The main issue, besides avoiding getting caught by police, Eddy has left her children home alone and her eldest son, T.J. (Charlie McDermott) was left to take care of his brother. As this was also around Christmas, T.J. ended up stealing a ladies credit card information to sell to a friend of his and was able to by his brother a Christmas present.

I am not going to ruin the ending, but it was rather amazing and something I just did not expect to happen. The movie itself was just done so well and I loved it - it reminded me a lot of Winter's Bone even though this was made first.

Grade: