www.list.co.uk/film
FROZEN RIVER (15) 97min ooo
It's a week before Christmas. and in upstate New York Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is struggling to keep her head above water. Her husband has gambled away their savings and promptly disappeared. she is having to support herself and her two sons on her meagre discount store wages. and she's about to miss out on a vital payment for a new prefabricated home. In desperation she becomes involved in a people-smuggling operation across the border to Canada. partnering a Mohawk Indian woman Lila (Misty Upham) from a nearby reservation. The duo drive across the frozen Saint Lawrence river, hiding illegal immigrants in the boot of Ray's Dodge Spirit. while trying to avoid the police patrols.
The debut feature of writer-director Courtney Hunt. this regional US indie can be loosely grouped alongside the likes of Wendy and Lucy and the forthcoming Goodbye Solo. all of which examine the everyday lives of blue-collar characters invariably ignored by mainstream cinema.
Stylistically the digitally shot Frozen River isn't particularly ambitious. yet this no-
frills approach chimes with the film‘s subject matter. and the bleak, wintry landscapes have a sombre power. Hunt hones in on the gradual friendship that develops between her two protagonists Lila and Ray. two working-class mothers functioning without any male support.
Leo's central performance. which won her a Best Actress nomination at this year's Oscars, is exceptional in its conviction and lack of vanity: the Dardenne brothers. you feel, would approve of Ray's resilience and determination and her moving act of sacrifice. (Tom Dawson)
I Filmhouse, Edinburgh 8 GFT Glasgow from Fri 77 Jul.
ROMANTIC COMEDY THE PROPOSAL (135‘). 1.0.7,“??? ”
A summer-smash in the US, Anne
Fletcher's follow-up to 27 Dresses is
an old-fashioned odd-couple comedy which might appeal to admirers of the bland charisma of Sandra Bullock and
Ryan Reynolds.
In a plot that blatantly reworks the
central idea of Peter Weir's considerably superior Green Card.
Bullock plays Margaret Tate. a bullish
publisher who faces deportation to
Canada. Her only route to remaining in
her swanky Madison Avenue job involves bullying her put-upon assistant Andrew (Reynolds) into a fake marriage to fool the customs officials.
First-time writer Peter Chiarelli offers
up an annoyingly contrived script.
which involves Margaret and Andrew
going to visit his family in Alaska. cueing slapstick falling-in-the-water pratfalls as they try to maintain their
pretence under scrutiny. It's surprising that Bullock produced The Proposal.
given the indignities she suffers.
including having the posing pouch of a
male stripper ground into her face. and a nude scene in which she and
Reynolds conceal their modesty with
tiny face cloths.
While the supporting players. including Craig T Nelson and Mary Steenburgen. are reliable and the
locations are bright, The Proposal is
soulless, manipulative fare. (Eddie Harrison) I General release from Wed 22 Jul.
DRAMA CROSSING OVER (1 5) 1 19min ”._ -_
removed.
(Alice Eve) for sex.
ALSO RELEASED
The Private Lives of Pippa
Lee (15) 98min oo When Pippa Lee (Robin Wright Penn) moves to a suburban retirement community with her much older husband (Alan Arkin). she begins to reflect on her eventful, strange and tragic past and slowly heads towards a nervous breakdown. Rebecca Miller's adaptation of her own novel is a soapy. contrived affair awash with some excellent performances. hampered by hammy dialogue. Unlike her novel, Miller's film works as neither a meditation on the ageing process or as a psychiatric trajectory of one impassive woman's late epiphany. Robin Wright Penn is. however. great as the titular dame and the film does have some moments of wit and wisdom amongst the schmaltz. See profile page 51. General release from Fri 70 Jul. Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country (12A) 89min u” Empathetic documentary from the maker of 2003's excellent Tintin and / about the unheralded video journalists who risk their lives every day in Burma. The film focuses on their international audience-grabbing work during the 2007 monk-led uprising in which many people lost their lives. This was the first (and possibly the last) film to receive a private screening at 10 Downing Street. Sarah Brown arranged the screening. Selected release from Tue 74 Jul.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (12A) 153min As the boy wizard becomes a man and enters his sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. the discovery of a book belonging to the Half Blood Prince leads him into Lord Voldemort's secret past. We were unable to review at time of going to press. but the review will be on www.list.co.uk as soon as possible and in next issue. General release from Wed 15 Jul.
Seven stories involving immigration and customs enforcement officials are awkwardly fused together in this well-meaning but compromised drama in the Crash/Babel mode. Writer/director Wayne Kramer graduates from promising lightweight B-movies Running Scared and The Cooler here. but his full l40-minute cut was rejected by producer Harvey Weinstein and Sean Penn, with the star‘s objections leading to his role being among the minutes
What's left features interlocking DA stories as agent Max Brogan (Harrison Ford) and his partner Hamid (Cliff Curtis) investigate what appears to be an honour killing. Meanwhile lawyer Denise Frankel (Ashley Judd) is trying to adopt an African child. unaware that her husband Cole (Ray Liotta) is using his power to award Green Cards to blackmail aspiring Aussie actress Claire
Throw in Jim Sturgess as Claire's musician/ boyfriend who is pretending to be Jewish to gain citizenship, a convenience store shoot—out. and government persecution of a schoolgirl for making a speech indicating Sympathy for the 9/1 1 bombers. and there's plenty going on. But the torn- from-the-headlines issues are fudged. and while Crossing Over is never dull, it comes up lacking in any real depth or insight. (Eddie Harrison)
I General release from Fri 77 Jul.
9-23 Jul 2009 THE LIST ‘9