Frozen River (2008)

Ray's older son T.J. wants to find a job and help support the family so they can afford to eat something more substantial than popcorn and Tang. He and his mother clash over whether he should remain in high-school and look after his little brother Ricky or drop out to work. To make matters worse, T.J. sets an outside corner of the trailer afire with a torch in an attempt to unfreeze the water pipe. Lila longs for the day she will be able to reclaim and live with her young son, who was taken from her by her mother-in-law immediately after his birth.



The film is set in the North Country of Upstate New York, near the Akwesasne ('Where the Partridge Drum') St. Regis Mohawk Reservation and the Canadian border, shortly before Christmas. Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is a discount store clerk struggling to raise two sons with her husband, a compulsive gambler who has disappeared with the funds she had earmarked to finance the purchase of a double-wide mobile home. While searching for him, she encounters Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham), a Mohawk bingo-parlor employee who is driving his car, which she claims she found abandoned with the keys in the ignition at the local bus-station. The two women, who have fallen on hard economic times, form a desperate and uneasy alliance and begin trafficking illegal immigrants from Canada into the United States across the frozen St. Lawrence River for $1200 each per crossing.



Italian
Dopo aver visto disattese tutte le sue speranze di comprare una casa prefabbricata, in quanto il marito é sparito dopo aver speso tutti i soldi nel gioco, Ray Eddy, che oltretutto ha due figli a carico, é disperata. Per cercare di guadagnare un po' di soldi per sopravvivere, si presta a far attraversare il confine tra il Canada e gli Stati Uniti ai clandestini cinesi e pachistani. Il piano é quello di nascondergli nel portabagagli della macchina ed attraversare il fiume St. Lawrence che in questo periodo dell'anno é ghiacciato. Ad aiutarla in questa avventura disperata, Lila, una giovane Mohawk, caduta in un profondo dolore da quando é stata allontanata dal figlio…