Review of Frozen River (2008) by Chads. — 06 Sep 2008

This is not Woody Allen's New York. This New York has a bingo parlour, a trailer park, an Indian reservation. Annie Hall doesn't live here. Ray Eddy(Melissa Leo) lives here. And her New York wouldn't look more romantic shot in black and white with "Rhapsody in Blue" insinuating itself on the soundtrack.

Ray is so poor, she has problems making payments on a mobile home. Because she's poor, Ray gets to know the "Indians" in a way that Annie Hall, or any one of Allen's characters never would.

"Frozen River" treats Native Americans as people, flawed people, real people, instead of people that are inherently noble because they had their land stolen from them. People like Lila(Misty Upham), who helps Chinese illegals cross the Canadian border into New York State.

To Ray, Lila is just "some Indian chick". To help herself realize the dream of owning a "double-wide trailer"(oh, that is so sad), Ray joins forces with the Native American woman, as the film ingeniously comments on the historical relationship between the natives and the settlers through this tenuous bond of renegade women without being the least bit didactic about it.

"Frozen River" plays out like a film with post-colonial ideals, but then the film suddenly, dramatically, becomes self-reflexive about it's post-colonialism when Ray tells Lila, "Now we're even," after she gets back what's rightfully hers.

These loaded words hang in the air without the slightest indication by Ray of her own naivety. Post-colonial theory is predicated on having a short memory. Ray's words are a perfect encapsulation of their selective thinking process.

"Frozen River" portrays white man's guilt over the Indian holocaust without the well-meaning fabulism of Kevin Costner's "Dances with Wolves", choosing instead to suture the rift between both peoples through sublimation.

Both Ray and Lila live in a vacuum(but the film doesn't). When they befriend each other, both women are unaware that they're correcting the past.