Frozen River

Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is mother of two whose husband has just run off with their savings and left her with the bills and debts and all on only a part time job at a discount store. She is the epitome of the working poor. When she seeks out her husband she discovers his car has been co-opted by a local Indian woman, Lila (Misty Upham) who uses it to smuggle illegal immigrants into the US from Canada. Desperate for money and unable to get ahead in her regular work, Ray forms an uncomfortable alliance with the Mohawk woman to use her car to smuggle immigrants.

This requires the two to drive across the frozen river that separates the US from Canada carrying two immigrants in a trunk. Ray has suspicion in general of Lila and Lila doesn't think too highly of white people and there first few encounters are ones of distrust and racism. In addition Ray has to keep up appearances for her youngest son while trying to keep in line her older son who recognizes the hardship they are in. Her fear of being caught and her anxiety about potentially letting terrorists into the country are outweighed by her crushing need for money.

Overall the film is a fairly devastating character study of a working poor single mother who is fighting against odds stacked against her. The problems of simply feeding her kids is frequently at issue and Ray seems to get no breaks. But in addition it develops a very fascinating relationship between Lila and Ray who overcome there distrust and come to a decent understanding of each other's life.

Melissa Leo carries the story for the most part. The ending might be a bit forced and there are two points in the film that I thought a bit much but overall it was well done. We first see Leo crying at movie's open and you get from moment one a real sense of the mountain she is caring on her shoulders. She never surrenders or gives up despite how hopeless it all seems.