82
Metascore
30 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Film ThreatFilm ThreatIt'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.
- 100TimeRichard SchickelTimeRichard SchickelIn 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.
- 91Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanA 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?
- 90Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternWall Street JournalJoe MorgensternThis 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.
- 90The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenMs. Hunt's eye for detail has the precision of a short story writer's. She misses nothing.
- 88USA TodayClaudia PuigUSA TodayClaudia PuigA Sundance hit that is both absorbing and bleak, Frozen River is anchored by powerful performances, believable scenarios and excellent writing.
- 80Village VoiceVillage VoiceIf there's one thing this movie gets dead right, it's the desperation of impoverished single mothers trying to fend for their children.
- 80SalonAndrew O'HehirSalonAndrew O'HehirFrozen River isn't cinematically ambitious or formally adventurous, but it's built around powerful and nuanced performances by Leo, Upham and Charlie McDermott.
- 75The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasIf 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.
- 70VarietyRobert KoehlerVarietyRobert KoehlerNo 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.