Hmmmm super duper Indie movie with Snow, I thought it would be Fargo with no money but I was wrong!..............bar the criminal activities of course.


My manly testosterone alert screamed 10 minutes in.

Tough mother
Lousy unseen father with gambling issues
Shitty living conditions
Everyone having faces like they'd stood in a hail storm for 5 years

It screamed in protest and I attempted to flee but the film was to quick and immediately assaulted me with snowballs filled with stones, and a bland on the outside story with hidden character depths! I was trapped and had to watch the rest, and thankfully I was rewarded because this was quite excellent.

Its a true Indie film none of that Juno ballcrap, but It also manages to avoid the Indie trap of being horribly smug and hard to get into. Our two main characters are some of the most beleivable and ultimately empathetic of the year, no airs or tacked on developments that are totally illogical, this film SHOCK GASP! sticks to the train tracks it sets out.

The director is going places on this evidence, places with money and hookers and drugs and possibly suicide by toma............sorry went off there.

Yes great movie me likey!

Jesus, didn't anyone else here go and see this?


This was AMAZING! So riveting and fascinating. Melissa Leo is SUPERB! I am so glad she got a Best Actress nomination. She deserves to win. I think I have a new favorite movie of the year now .

Grade: 9/10 (A)

Excellent movie! One of my favorites for 2008.

I wouldn't quite put it on the pedestal some are. Definitely a riveting performane by a very underated actress, and her turn is more than deserving of this enthusiasm. However, the movie doesn't really have anything beyond Melissa Leo. She is the movie. The writing is fine, brief, minimal, also the other performances are pretty....bland. They seem to be only there to set up the plot and give her someone to talk to, in effect, This almost feels like a Melissa Leo monologue. There are some important and interesting points made about family and laws, and some scenes are very poignantly felt, (especially the dramatic climax) I just wish there were more in the film to support Leo's awe inspiring turn. In addition the production was incredibly indie, and I hate to hold that against a film, but in a day of new technology and production values I have to talk about .5 off for this very outdated technical feel.
8/10 (if it were anyone other Leo in the lead this movie would have been lucky to get a 7)

Are you serious? How can you hold a movie being "indie" against it?

you're funny

Outdated technical feel???? What on earth are you talking about, its a film set in a run down area of America with bleak harsh weather. What did you expect blazing LA sunshine backdropped by beautiful people?

Yeah, the production values are "indie" because it is an indie. And given the subject matter, telling a story about desperate people in poverty, it's actually appropriate that it's filmed in such a way. Anyway...

One of 2008's hidden gems, though it will thankfully get more attention now thanks to Oscar nominations for Melissa Leo and the screenplay. Leo lives up to every word of the hype as Ray Eddy, a woman living in poverty with her two sons whose father has just left with the down payment on their new double-wide trailer home. Leo doesn't shy away from any of the ugliness of the role, capturing all of Ray's troubling ins-and-outs, both physically and emotionally. Also fantastic is Misty Upham as the young Mohawk mother whose mother-in-law "stole" her son, and the one who introduces Leo's Ray to the business of smuggling immigrants into the United States across Mohawk territory. It's a haunting and compelling telling of desperation and the things it can cause people to do, and it will stay with you after its brief 93-minute running time has passed by.

A-

ouch, didn't mean to get that reaction. I probably phrased that poorly, what I meant to say is that the production values are poor, and I understand that this is a low budget indie film, and yes that sort of adds to the general feel of desperation, however it makes the film less entertaining and does not add a poignant feel (like Rachel Getting Married did). I'm not saying its' a big deal or it really hurts the film, but it was distracting.
Keep in mind I still gave this an 8, put it on the bottom of my top 10 list, and consider it better than Slumdog Millionaire.
Oh, and an 8 is strong for me, I love tons of movies but the vast majority of films I see fall between 6-7.5, just so ya know.

I thought the film was fucking awful.

There's so many problems with the story in general and the "whys" of it. A supposed "powerhouse performance" that's surrounded by people not good enough to do dinner theater.

So this chick lives on/near a reservation for years(?) and remains ignorant enough about the culture that we have to be continuously told (not shown!) what is going on while they travel back and fourth across the river?

Misty Upham is god awful. Look, I don't care if they are real Mohawk Indians and this is "really, the real people", but when you anchor the film with a Leo like performance you better make sure the people in the car are at least worthy of sitting near her. The problem with using "real people, not actors" in film is that it takes an actor to overcome the camera itself. There's far too many times in this film when I felt like the cameraman, and that's a bad thing.

An Irishman is gonna rape roo now.

We've discussed it in private. No bloodshed.

He disagrees with one of my points. He doesn't agree with the rest. That's fine. He can sleep outside next time he stays with me!

Heh