Melissa Leo is one of those actresses whose refusal to go glam or play the starlet game probably resulted in stardom passing her by. She’s in her late 40s now, and has gotten most of her critical acclaim from tough, gritty roles she’s played on TV (notably for a few years on “Homicide”).
She’s paid a lot of dues — and her reward might just be imminent. Her gutsy performance in the indie film “Frozen River” is the kind of thing that wins awards, even if she’s been working at this level for years.
Leo plays a hard-luck woman in an upstate New York town that lies on the border with Quebec. Her husband has just run off with the $4,000 they needed to buy a new trailer home, and has probably gambled the money away by now.
She’s got two sons, a low-paying job at a local dollar store, and no prospects. Her life is like an old country song. But a chance meeting with a casino worker (Misty Upham), a member of the Mohawk tribe, changes all that.
There’s a bundle to be made driving illegal Asian immigrants across the Canadian border. The St. Lawrence River, frozen over in the dead of winter, is the “road” across.
This set-up ensures plenty of suspenseful scenes, as the two women (who don’t trust each other, either) try to dodge a local lawman (Michael O’Keefe) and the terrible weather.
At times, the melodrama is downright Dickensian, and the movie isn’t always subtle about pulling the audience’s strings. But writer-director Courtney Hunt is thorough in creating a sense of place, and in sketching the kind of people who are generally left off the movie screen.
Still, the reason to see “Frozen River” is Melissa Leo. Her face haggard and her red hair in a ratty mess, she fully conveys the kind of person who’s made some bad decisions and is now trying to live with them as best she can. There’s absolutely no sense of an actress slumming, as sometimes happens when movie stars go without makeup. Like her weary character, she simply inhabits her role with a minimum of fuss.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
