Frozen River
Metascore
82 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 30 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 28 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 30
  3. Negative: 0 out of 30
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    Sometimes two performances come along that are so perfectly matched that no overt signals are needed to show how the characters feel about each other. That's what happens between Melissa Leo and Misty Upham in Frozen River.
  2. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    100
    There is nothing sentimental or picturesque about the performances or imagery. The word that best describes both is elemental.
  3. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Don R. Lewis
    100
    It's tough and cold and gives an inside look at poverty in America. Yet the film is also incredibly compelling and intense and I can't think of another film that's this small and powerful.
  4. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    100
    As the summer heats up, let Frozen River wash over you; let its bracing drama and the intensity of its acting restore your spirits as well as your faith in American independent film.
  5. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    100
    In the end, you feel that Frozen River gives about as truthful a picture of American bleakness as it's possible for a movie to present. It is a movie that asks something of an audience, but it richly rewards our curiously rapt attention.
  6. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    91
    A tale of ordinary Americans scraping bottom, yet there's a redemption in that. The film asks: If you were this desperate, wouldn't you do the same?
  7. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    90
    Ms. Hunt's eye for detail has the precision of a short story writer's. She misses nothing.
  8. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    90
    This is a debut feature, though you'd never know it from the filmmaker's commandingly confident style, or from the heartbreaking beauty -- heartbreaking, then heartmending -- of Melissa Leo's performance as a poor single mother who's living her whole life on thin ice.
  9. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    90
    Made with uncommon skill and assurance, the film never succumbs to rank sentimentality, but it manages to get at the nuances of human relationships.
  10. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Tasha Robinson
    88
    Possibly one of the biggest reasons Frozen River stands out among bad-decision movies is that Ray never really tries to justify her actions.
  11. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    88
    There is no shortage of indie movies about economically challenged women. This one is different, in that the women actually do something besides just talk about it.
  12. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    88
    Strikingly authentic, socially conscious crime drama.
  13. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    88
    A Sundance hit that is both absorbing and bleak, Frozen River is anchored by powerful performances, believable scenarios and excellent writing.
  14. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    88
    Does what too many independent American movies only pretend to do: Takes you to an unnoticed corner of our country and shows what it's like to actually live there.
  15. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    83
    Melissa Leo is startlingly good...You feel like you're watching a life, not a performance.
  16. Empire
    Reviewed by: Angie Errigo
    80
    Original, sad, suspenseful and involving: the kind of work that helps independent American cinema retain its good name.
  17. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Andrew O'Hehir
    80
    Frozen River isn't cinematically ambitious or formally adventurous, but it's built around powerful and nuanced performances by Leo, Upham and Charlie McDermott.
  18. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    80
    If there's one thing this movie gets dead right, it's the desperation of impoverished single mothers trying to fend for their children.
  19. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    80
    A first-rate thriller, maintaining a high level of suspense.
  20. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    78
    Frozen River skates matter-of-factly on thin ice.
  21. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Stephen Cole
    75
    The film's greatest achievement is that it allows us to know Ray.
  22. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    75
    A solid, satisfying movie.
  23. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    75
    Melissa Leo is one of America's most underrated character actresses, and Frozen River confirms that opinion.
  24. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    75
    It's not a happy film, but it feels true.
  25. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Bill White
    75
    Most films about illegal immigration are set on the Mexican border, and Frozen River is free of the stereotypical characters and situations of that familiar setting. It also offers a rare look at modern Native American life, exploring the ambiguity of what it means to say that the laws of the white man cannot be enforced on Indian territory.
  26. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    75
    If the role brings her more recognition and work, all the better, but Leo certainly isn't lobbying for it. She doesn't show off. She just does what she's always done: Reveals a character for who she is, nothing more, nothing less.
  27. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    70
    All in all, Frozen River is gripping stuff. Except it's also rigged and cheaply manipulative.
  28. Variety
    Reviewed by: Robert Koehler
    70
    No trendsetter or breakthrough, this is more than anything else a welcome chance for the fine actor Melissa Leo to finally dominate a film in a terrific and affecting lead role.
  29. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    50
    If we're going to be honest, we need to look inside and ask ourselves: Do we really want to see a listless movie about a woman whose dream is to move into a double-wide trailer?
  30. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    40
    Has moments of honesty, but more often the barren landscape - both outside and inside - drains the emotions out of the film.

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
8.3 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 55 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 18
  3. Negative: 4 out of 18
  1. Lyn
    9
    Melissa Leo truly deserved her Oscar nomination for a gritty performance that feels real from the shabbiness of her clothes to the crunch of the snow beneath the tires of her old car. One of those films that leaves you thinking later, "I wonder what happened to those people" . . . even though, of course, they were fictional. "Frozen" as well as the river in their own crises and quandaries, the characters make you root for them to break free.… Full Review »
  2. MurielG.
    2
    I live on the reservation depicted. Not only were some scenes too dark - many facts are left out and the reality of Akwesasne here is again stereotyped. The only true pictures of here were the bridge - The movie mocks our tribal police, puts us all in rundown trailers, and made our Bingo Palace (which is eluded to by name in one scene) look rundown and the center of vandalism. And , of course the Mohawks are depicted as not caring about terrorist threats when they are smuggling people - "Only" the white woman in this film shows any concern or recognition of such threats - yet she is so stupid she throws a baby in a satchel out the door in case it may be something dangerous like(anthrax? or a bomb) she never looked to see what was in it. Another thing I have yet to see a big rig cross the "ice bridge" here. Parts of the film did hold my interest, the mention of our traditional Longhouse only puts traditionals down for not giving their children Santa Claus. What they are and what they truly represent, which is (I am sure) the key to continuation of life on this planet is a shame - so many people seeing this film have and will think what they saw represents this Nation (the Mohawk Nation). It never tells of all of the good honest & hard working people that live here nor how it was taken from our ancestors forcing a very few of our people to take some wrong actions. That would be a better focus for the movie. Unfortunately, the racism that we experience, does exist. The wrongs done to our people were done by the same terrorists they fear (themselves) when they took over our continent - do a film depicting that! ONe of your reviewers even sees this movie as the Mohawk woman and the white woman as correcting the past??? HUH??? How may I ask.… Full Review »
  3. JonahR.
    2
    Amatuerish and fake. It has one or two decent performances but nothing to get excited about. A movie about a woman who made many poor choices and yet we're suppose to become emotionally involved over her plight to earn her trailer house via illegal means. The ending rang false and there were many times I found myself rolling my eyes at the stupidity of the screenplay. I.E. Lila's eyesight was so poor that she couldn't count the money they earned...yet she can see tracks in the snow on a dark night on a frozen river.… Full Review »
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