Courtney Hunt

Blu-Ray Review: Oscar-Nominated ‘Frozen River’ Has Gripping Dramatic Power

BrianTT — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:50:32 -0700

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Courtney Hunt’s “Frozen River” is easily the most unlikely double Oscar nominee of 2008, scoring nods for Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay and now available on Blu-Ray from Sony Home Entertainment.

Like “Wendy and Lucy” and “Ballast” (both films I think are slightly superior), “Frozen River” is about people on the economic fringe. Melissa Leo gives a stunning performance as Ray, a Yankee Dollar employee struggling to make ends meet after the gambling addict father of her kids leaves her with next to nothing.

Misty Upham and Melissa Leo star in Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River.
Photo credit: Sony

Ray can’t make the payments on her new double-wide house, feeds her kids popcorn and Tang for dinner, and does everything she can to keep her fragile world together. She lives in Massena, New York, near the Canadian border on a landscape of North American that feels frozen physically, socially, and emotionally. Everyone is on thin ice.

Misty Upham and Melissa Leo star in Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River.
Photo credit: Sony

In this bleak terrain, Ray crosses path with another single mother, Lila, a recently widowed Mohawk woman who has watched her mother-in-law steal her child from her with no repercussions. Lila still wants to provide for her child and has entered the smuggling business, traveling across the Mohawk reservation to Canada, putting illegal immigrants in her trunk and coming back.

Ray and Lila have so few options to make ends meet that they team up in their illegal venture transporting immigrants in the middle of the night across a frozen river. Ray can see the down payment in just another trip or two, but, of course, circumstances spiral out of control and both women are forced to make a series of decisions that could mean life or death.

The nomination for Melissa Leo for Best Actress for “Frozen River” is understandable ten minutes into the Blu-Ray for this gripping drama. Her performance is the beating heart of this film and it is one hundred percent believable. It’s the kind of role that so many actresses would have turned into melodramatic scenery-chewing but Leo never goes there, saving the emotions for where they are needed in the final act.

Having said that, I think Leo took a Best Actress spot that Michelle Williams for “Wendy and Lucy,” Kristin Scott Thomas for “I’ve Loved You So Long,” and Sally Hawkins for “Happy-Go-Lucky” arguably deserved more. Watching Melissa Leo in “Frozen River,” marveling at her excellent performance, and then realizing that she probably still wouldn’t be in my top five for 2008 just proves how incredible a year it was for actresses.

Melissa Leo stars in Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River.
Photo credit: Sony

As for the screenplay, while I love when the Academy recognizes new voices, Hunt’s work did not deserve an Oscar nomination over at least half a dozen other choices including “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” “The Visitor,” “Rachel Getting Married” or “Synecdoche, New York”. I’m a little stunned that it was and wonder if it’s not partially due to the economic crisis this country now faces and the dramatic power the real headlines lend this story.

The script and direction for “Frozen River” are good, but there’s a subtlety in Leo’s performance that’s a bit missing from the rest of the piece. The music choices, numerous shots of the cracking ice, and general pervading sense of dread always made me feel like I was watching a movie, even though Leo’s work goes a long way in making the story believable.

The Sony Blu-Ray release for “Frozen River” is good, but far from great. The 1080P picture with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio is good but mixed a little too dark. I wonder if taking a film that was shot on such a low-budget and giving it the HD treatment doesn’t backfire for the final product. “Frozen River” is the kind of movie that might look better in standard definition. And the audio track in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 is not significantly enhanced by the format although the dialogue is well-mixed and never muffled.

As for special features, “Frozen River” includes only one, an informative and interesting commentary about the making of the film from Hunt and producer Heather Rae.

“Frozen River” is probably the major Oscar nominee that most of you haven’t seen. Correct that before the ceremony on Sunday, February 22nd, 2009, just in case Leo and Hunt pull the ultimate upset.

‘Frozen River’ is released by Sony Pictures Entertainment and stars Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott, Michael O’Keefe, and Mark Boone Junior. It was written and directed by Courtney Hunt. It was released on February 10th, 2009.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Interview: Melissa Leo Channels John Wayne in Sundance Hit ‘Frozen River’

HollywoodChicago.com — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:51:00 -0600

CHICAGO – Melissa Leo is a familiar face to admirers of the TV show “Homicide: Life on the Street”.

After playing Sgt. Kay Howard for five years on that popular series, she left the show to pursue character roles in such films as “21 Grams” and “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada”. Taking on a leading role in her latest film “Frozen River,” Leo captures the desperation and strength of a woman with everything to lose.

“Frozen River” star Melissa Leo in Chicago on July 16, 2008.
Photo credit: Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

A scene from “Frozen River”.
Photo credit: Jory Sutton, copyright Frozen River Productions

HollywoodChicago.com recently interviewed Leo in anticipation of the film’s release. The actress candidly talked about her character’s direction and the nature of the unusual film.

“Frozen River,” which is an acclaimed Sundance Film Festival drama, refers to an upper New York state tributary that freezes so hard in the winter that vehicles are known to drive over it. Leo plays Ray Eddy: a resident of that Canadian border town whose husband has abandoned her with two children.

He also has stolen savings that would have been a down payment for a new trailer in which the family could have lived. Leo speaks about how she landed the role and how she collaborated with writer and director Courtney Hunt.

“The first thing Courtney said to me was: ‘Will you read my short?’ I happily did,” Leo said. “Then I called her and said: ‘Let’s do this.’ We shot the short. She edited it, showed it to me and said: ‘Good job.’ Then she said: ‘Would you like to do the feature?’ I didn’t even know she had a feature.”

Melissa Leo as Ray Eddy in “Frozen River”.
Photo credit: Jory Sutton, copyright Frozen River Productions

Rating: 4.0/5.0

“Courtney knew much more about the characters,” Leo said. “There were unanswered questions in the short we didn’t even know. The characters at that time were the ‘native’ and the ‘blonde’. They had no names.”

Ray Eddy became the character’s name. She lives desperately hand to mouth. With her husband gone and her savings wiped out, she decides to begin running illegal immigrants in the trunk of her car. The way to Canada without a border check is by directly driving over the frozen river.

“Courtney gave me a valuable piece of direction right before we shot the feature,” Leo said. “Watch ‘The Searchers’ (1956) and ‘Rio Grande’ (1950). Watch John Wayne. That’s probably the most consistent piece of direction throughout the rest of the filming process. It’s a little bit of the Duke.”

Eddy partners with Lila (Misty Upham): a Native American who lives on a nearby reservation.

Director Courtney Hunt on the set of “Frozen River”.
Photo credit: Jory Sutton, copyright Frozen River Productions

Charlie McDermott as TJ Eddy in “Frozen River”.
Photo credit: Jory Sutton, copyright Frozen River Productions

Lila knows the particulars of the immigrant running. She and Eddy have parallel lives with Lila having a husband who recently died and a son being raised by grandparents. Both women are looking to make a quick score and get the money they need to move on with their lives.

“This was actually a matriarchal story,” Leo said. “The natives have a lot of female tribal heads. You see the portrayal of the tribal meetings in the film to be heavily female, which is an accurate portrayal of those types of meetings.”

Leo added: “In our film, this is women doing what women do to get by especially when the men have let them down.”

The film is heavy with thematic symbolism involving race, gender and class. Leo spoke about those elements while emphasizing another aspect of the overall experience.

RELATED IMAGE GALLERY
View our full, high-resolution “Frozen River” image gallery.

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More film reviews from critic Patrick McDonald.

“The strength of the film is the story – a story that most people haven’t heard before,” Leo Said. “It’s a rich story because it encompasses all those themes.”

The “rich story” also has – in what Leo describes – a “satisfying” ending. She added: “The two women have learned something, have grown and are better people by the end of the film because of the journey the audience watches them go through.”

She concluded: “We are here to grow into our best selves. That is my religion. Whatever can get you there and whatever the trials, that is what betters us. That is how the story of this film is played out.”

“Frozen River” from writer and director Courtney Hunt stars Melissa Leo, Misty Upham and Michael O’Keefe opens in limited theaters on Aug. 15, 2008.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com