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That Melissa Leo rocks is a given. Otherwise, underneath its indie-school charm and digi-cam realism, Frozen River
Like too much contemporary indie cinema, however, the surface, tactile immediacy is betrayed by a series of marketplace-fit plot arcs, in what’s really a girl-power buddy movie. The attempts to weave a general socio-political net, tying together the failing heroines with fears of terrorism and immigration, go a couple of steps too far without really engaging, and a last-act swerve into vaguely noir action and morally grave reckoning is unpersuasive. Such lapses disappoint given the effective location filming and persuasive sense of oppressive straits. It’s not bad, but might have been far better.
