Synopsis
Ray Eddy, an upstate New York trailer mom, is lured into the world of illegal immigrant smuggling. Broke after her husband takes off with the down payment for their new doublewide, Ray reluctantly teams up with Lila, a smuggler, and the two begin making runs across the frozen St. Lawrence River carrying illegal Chinese and Pakistani immigrants in the trunk of Ray's Dodge Spirit.
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Cast
- Melissa LeoRay Eddy
- Misty UphamLila Littlewolf
- Charlie McDermottTJ
- John CanoeBernie Littlewolf
- Jay KlaitzGuy Versailles
- Dylan CarusonaJimmy
- James ReillyRicky
- Michael O'KeefeTrooper Finnerty
- Mark Boone JuniorJacques Bruno
- Betty OuyangChinese woman
Recommendations
- 100
Film Threat
It's tough and cold and gives an inside look at poverty in America. Yet the film is also incredibly compelling and intense and I can't think of another film that's this small and powerful. - 100
Time
In the end, you feel that Frozen River gives about as truthful a picture of American bleakness as it's possible for a movie to present. It is a movie that asks something of an audience, but it richly rewards our curiously rapt attention. - 91
Entertainment Weekly
A tale of ordinary Americans scraping bottom, yet there's a redemption in that. The film asks: If you were this desperate, wouldn't you do the same? - 90
Wall Street Journal
This is a debut feature, though you'd never know it from the filmmaker's commandingly confident style, or from the heartbreaking beauty -- heartbreaking, then heartmending -- of Melissa Leo's performance as a poor single mother who's living her whole life on thin ice. - 90
The New York Times
Ms. Hunt's eye for detail has the precision of a short story writer's. She misses nothing. - 88
USA Today
A Sundance hit that is both absorbing and bleak, Frozen River is anchored by powerful performances, believable scenarios and excellent writing. - 80
Village Voice
If there's one thing this movie gets dead right, it's the desperation of impoverished single mothers trying to fend for their children. - 80
Salon
Frozen River isn't cinematically ambitious or formally adventurous, but it's built around powerful and nuanced performances by Leo, Upham and Charlie McDermott.
