Frozen River / By the time you read this, the Oscar for Best Actress will have already been awarded. The one thing that can be said with certainty at this writing, is that it went to the wrong woman. Kristin Scott Thomas deserved it for I’ve Loved You So Long and she wasn’t even nominated. Neither was Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky. The buzz has the statue going to Kate Winslet, who was nominated for the wrong damn movie. She was terrific in Revolutionary Road, not The Reader, where she was alternately overpowered by both her role as a pedophile and by gollops of old age make-up. Meryl Streep did what she usually does, well, but not exceptionally. Same goes for Angelina Jolie and Anne Hathaway (Rosemarie DeWitt as the title character in Rachel Getting Married is the one that really deserved a nomination as well).

The one actual nominee that did get under the skin and make a lasting and haunting impression this year was Melissa Leo. Probably most recognized as Benicio Del Toro’s wife in 21 Grams, her performance in the under-seen Frozen River deserves a viewing and it is now available on DVD and Blu-ray. She plays Ray Eddy, a cashier at a grocery/drugstore and mother of two. Her husband ran out on the family and she struggles to make ends meet during the holiday season. While searching for her gambling-addicted spouse in an American Indian bingo parlor, she meets Lila, a Mohawk trying to steal her husband’s car. The two cash-strapped women eventually strike up a partnership of sorts when they solve their economic downturns by smuggling illegal immigrants through a border crossing on a Mohawk reservation between New York and Quebec. The dangerous journey is made all the more deadly because part of the drive takes place on a frozen river.

The movie sputters after the first act though, spinning its wheels with too many scenes of the lifestyles of the white and trashy, and gets downright melodramatic toward the end with an overly aggressive move from our desperate heroine that seems out of character. Also, the symbolism of the car above the icy waters is obvious and heavy-handedly milked, but Leo somehow pulls everything off.

The foundation of her performance is low-income moping, but Leo brings such an earnest and heartfelt sense of realism to her role that it manages to feel fresh and natural, even when her character is behaving questionably—as dictated by the script. Matching her scene for scene is Misty Upham as Lila, her American Indian partner in smuggling crime. The pair create an innate and engaging rapport that eventually allows the two actresses to sell an ending that feels trite and abrupt. Just as good as Upham is Charlie McDermott as oldest son TJ, a young boy who must be more mature than he should be. His guarded interactions with his mother lend another dimension of depth to the world first-time director Courtney Hunt tries to create.

Had more care gone into the story, Frozen River could have been a white-trash indie classic. As it stands however, it still is an admirable showcase for evocative, gritty performances. n