Frozen River

Sometimes around our house, we declare a Monday Night at the Movies or a Tuesday Night…which we did this evening. At the Sunset 5 (which I used to believe was the center of Los Angeles) we saw Frozen River.

Perfectly imperfect and truly great. The grand jury prize winner of Sundance, this is the big Indie Film of the summer and in a world of flying bats, men made of iron and forty year old stoner boys, it is a great relief.

The acting, superbish. Melissa Leo and Misty Upham pair up to smuggle people across the Canadian border. They drive right over the frozen St. Lawrence River into Canada on tribal land to do it (Misty Upham as Lila is a Mohawk Native American).

All this to buy a double wide trailer? Yes! You may never make a trailer joke again. Melissa Leo as Jay makes the need for a double wide so basic and so upwardly mobile (she lives in a single with her two boys) that everyone can relate!

Lovely film. The plot turns on very human needs. Okay, I’ll say it—on the basic needs of caring for others (fucking women, why can’t they just stop caring for others?, especially their own children?)-- See? What a world we live in? I actually was a little thrown that the story had something to do with caring for your kids in this primary way.

Oh, and the scene with the Pakistanis. Well, I can’t write anything about it. Don’t want to ruin anything.

Trailers burn. Cops get involved. Christmas is coming. So is the Repo man. Anything for money in a desperate frozen land.

I’ve been all around up by Plattsburgh, New York. There are really only two things to do up there:

1) Make a movie

Or

2) Get the hell out!

Frozen River. I give it three and a half out of four Pangolins.
(All units of measure are random. Let’s face it.)