Atonement- 1/6/08
The Golden Compass- 1/12/08
Cloverfield- 1/19/08
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly- 1/20/08
The Savages- 1/25/08
Persepolis- 2/8/08
Be Kind Rewind- 2/22/08
In Bruges- 3/19/08
Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day- 3/29/08
Young @ Heart- 4/19/08
Smart People- 4/20/08
The Band's Visit- 4/27/08
Iron Man- 5/10/08
Topsy-Turvy- 4/30/08
The Visitor- 6/6/06
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull- 6/8/08
The Fall- 6/22/08
Get Smart- 6/25/08
Wall-E- 6/27/08
Wanted- 6/29/08
The Incredible Hulk- 7/4/08
Hellboy II: The Golden Army- 7/12/08
Hancock- 7/13/08
The Dark Knight- 7/18/08
Wall-E- 7/19/08
Pineapple Express- 8/10/8
The Dark Knight: Imax Experience- 8/10/08
Vicky Cristina Barcelona- 8/23/08
The Little Mermaid Sing Along- 8/24/08
Hamlet 2- 8/31/08
Tropic Thunder- 9/7/08
Girl Cut In Two- 9/12/08
Burn After Reading- 9/13/08
Miracle at St. Anna- 10/3/2008
Choke- 10/5/2008
Cool Hand Luke- 10/7/2008
W.- 10/17/08
Rachel Getting Married- 10/18/08
Ashes of Time: Redux- 10/24/08
Happy Go Lucky- 11/01/08
Rock n Rolla- 11/06/08
Synecdoche, NY- 11/13/08
Quantum of Solace- 11/14/08
Passion of Joan of Arc- 11/23/08
Milk- 11/27/08
Slumdog Millionaire- 11/23/08
Ciao- 12/14/08
The Wrestler- 12/22/08
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- 12/25/08
Revolutionary Road- 12/26/08
Let The Right One In- 1/9/2009
Taken- 2/01/09
Gran Torino- 2/16/09
Frozen River- 2/17/09
Friday, February 20, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Frozen River
Dir. Courtney Hunt, 2008
In a time when the most prominent female figures in cinema are the leads in such films as Confessions of a Shopaholic or He's Just Not That Into You, here is a film driven by the kind of woman you might one day actually meet, and might actually like. It takes independent cinema to portray people with struggles and difficulties more complex than just managing an unrealistic credit limit or trying to figure out whether or not you're correctly interpreting a guy's mixed messages. In Frozen River, the characters are stark and yet rich with emotion and nuance, with responsibilities and scars more profound than could possibly be written into a script.
Melissa Leo, an extremely underused and underrated actress, plays Ray Eddy, a mother of two boys living in a trailer in the far north of upstate New York. When we first see her, she is sitting in the passenger seat of a car with the door open, glove compartment hanging open, thinking through some emotions before putting on a brave face for her kids. She stays cheerful for her giddy five-year-old son, who is excited about the new double-wide that they are getting. As the new trailer drives up, Ray runs to meet them and tries to bargain with the salesman to set up installation payments, or to pay at a later date. They turn her down, give her an ultimatum, she turns to face her 15-year-old son, TJ, who already knows what happened. Apparently, her husband had run off to Atlantic City with the four thousand dollars they were going to put toward the double-wide.
Rather than this film turn into the story of a woman coping with having no man, getting her man back, or meeting and falling in love with a new man, this is about a woman who can do it, and does it. She tracks down her husband's car, picked up by Lila, a young woman from the Mohawk tribe, with problems of her own. The two women are at odds at first, and what starts off as indignant coercion turns into a common convenience over which they form a willing partnership. They begin to smuggle illegal immigrants from Canada to the United States by driving over the expanse of frozen river that normally separates the two countries. It started off with Lila and Ray holding each other at gunpoint, but the steady incline in trust and understanding leads to solid teamwork.
The great thing about most performances in independent films is the refreshing subtlety. I last saw Melissa Leo in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and she was good, but I admit to not having thought too much about her as an actress. It is clear to me that whatever fame and notoriety she is missing is because nobody must know who she is. Because she's pushing 40 and has visible lines on her face, she will never be a Hollywood household name, but her style is forceful and confident. She's hard as nails, but her tenderness is visible, never cloying. She interacts well with Missy Upton, who plays Lila. Upton, too, has a quiet kind of strength, and never once plays into cliches. Even the actor who played TJ, the 15-year old son, is effective in the way he incorporates teenaged sarcasm without turning into a caricature.
It's also refreshing to see a successful female filmmaker, especially one who addresses issues of racial tension and poverty. I can sense the woman's touch in a film's production, and it seems to be in the details: the genuine maternal intuition, the expression of emotions, the relative scale of the drama. As a woman, I can identify with this perception of the world and this understanding of humanity and certain experiences. Courtney Hunt chooses to show us the oft-seen story of the "unlikely friendship" (a phrase a strongly dislike) against a backdrop of muted social consciousness and the importance of family and self-sacrifice.
I had watched a lot of studio films in a row before seeing Frozen River, and it was like eating an apple after days of processed food. It feels real, natural, fresh, good for you. Almost a relief. I was allowed to think for myself, to process the nuances and secrets hidden in a glance or a flourish in the background. Even the reduced quality of film was a nice change from the overly polished glamor of big-budget flicks. Best of all, it didn't immediately vanish from my mind as I walked out of the theater. I could ponder and dwell on things that bothered me or that I needed to process. Thinking just feels so good.
In a time when the most prominent female figures in cinema are the leads in such films as Confessions of a Shopaholic or He's Just Not That Into You, here is a film driven by the kind of woman you might one day actually meet, and might actually like. It takes independent cinema to portray people with struggles and difficulties more complex than just managing an unrealistic credit limit or trying to figure out whether or not you're correctly interpreting a guy's mixed messages. In Frozen River, the characters are stark and yet rich with emotion and nuance, with responsibilities and scars more profound than could possibly be written into a script.
Melissa Leo, an extremely underused and underrated actress, plays Ray Eddy, a mother of two boys living in a trailer in the far north of upstate New York. When we first see her, she is sitting in the passenger seat of a car with the door open, glove compartment hanging open, thinking through some emotions before putting on a brave face for her kids. She stays cheerful for her giddy five-year-old son, who is excited about the new double-wide that they are getting. As the new trailer drives up, Ray runs to meet them and tries to bargain with the salesman to set up installation payments, or to pay at a later date. They turn her down, give her an ultimatum, she turns to face her 15-year-old son, TJ, who already knows what happened. Apparently, her husband had run off to Atlantic City with the four thousand dollars they were going to put toward the double-wide.
Rather than this film turn into the story of a woman coping with having no man, getting her man back, or meeting and falling in love with a new man, this is about a woman who can do it, and does it. She tracks down her husband's car, picked up by Lila, a young woman from the Mohawk tribe, with problems of her own. The two women are at odds at first, and what starts off as indignant coercion turns into a common convenience over which they form a willing partnership. They begin to smuggle illegal immigrants from Canada to the United States by driving over the expanse of frozen river that normally separates the two countries. It started off with Lila and Ray holding each other at gunpoint, but the steady incline in trust and understanding leads to solid teamwork.
The great thing about most performances in independent films is the refreshing subtlety. I last saw Melissa Leo in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and she was good, but I admit to not having thought too much about her as an actress. It is clear to me that whatever fame and notoriety she is missing is because nobody must know who she is. Because she's pushing 40 and has visible lines on her face, she will never be a Hollywood household name, but her style is forceful and confident. She's hard as nails, but her tenderness is visible, never cloying. She interacts well with Missy Upton, who plays Lila. Upton, too, has a quiet kind of strength, and never once plays into cliches. Even the actor who played TJ, the 15-year old son, is effective in the way he incorporates teenaged sarcasm without turning into a caricature.
It's also refreshing to see a successful female filmmaker, especially one who addresses issues of racial tension and poverty. I can sense the woman's touch in a film's production, and it seems to be in the details: the genuine maternal intuition, the expression of emotions, the relative scale of the drama. As a woman, I can identify with this perception of the world and this understanding of humanity and certain experiences. Courtney Hunt chooses to show us the oft-seen story of the "unlikely friendship" (a phrase a strongly dislike) against a backdrop of muted social consciousness and the importance of family and self-sacrifice.
I had watched a lot of studio films in a row before seeing Frozen River, and it was like eating an apple after days of processed food. It feels real, natural, fresh, good for you. Almost a relief. I was allowed to think for myself, to process the nuances and secrets hidden in a glance or a flourish in the background. Even the reduced quality of film was a nice change from the overly polished glamor of big-budget flicks. Best of all, it didn't immediately vanish from my mind as I walked out of the theater. I could ponder and dwell on things that bothered me or that I needed to process. Thinking just feels so good.
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