Frozen River: Film Analysis

American author, Jill Churchill, in her mysterious book, Grime and Punishment once said, “There's no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one” (Churchill, 1989, ). Even though a perfect mother does not exist, almost every mother would bend over backwards to support their children’s needs. This means scavenging for ways to financially aid a child's necessities. An example of this struggle is in the film, Frozen River (2008), where director Courtney Hunt presents two mothers who must overcome the trust issues within each other in order to work together and breakthrough their economic situation. The film begins by introducing Ray, a mother of two young boys, who is devastated by the fact that her husband ran away with the …show more content…
She does this by transitioning from Lila gazing at her son from a tree then showing Ray filling her son with false hope. This provides a parallel between what Ray and Lila scramble for. Another use of transition was bouncing from Ray who was denied a promotion in her job to Lila inability to buy a car. Both women are unable to find a way to prosper on their own and need each other’s assistance to improve. For this reason Ray decides to work with Lila in order to make greater profit by smuggling individuals across the border. It was important for the author to use transitions in this manner in order to demonstrate the need for both characters and display the reason why they must overcome their trust to benefit from each …show more content…
They had to choose between Lila getting excluded from the reservation and possibly losing her child or Ray getting arrested leaving her children behind. Ray pleaded Lila for her freedom explaining that they had no one to look after her children. Almost instantly Lila gave her permission to leave and as Ray ran away she stopped in the middle of the dark forest and pondered about Lila. In her return to the cabin Ray listed the wishes Lila must do in order to find a home for her children and how to care for them. Ray loves her children and was able to trust Lila for the only thing she cared about. In fact when the trooper asked Ray who would care for her children she responded with a friend referring to Lila (Hunt, 2008, min 88). We are able to see how the relationship between the two which began with hatefulness transformed into full trust with one another.
In the end, what started as two individuals at gunpoint resulted in faithful friendship. We are able to understand through Hunt’s film the power of motherhood and its ability to break borders between enemies. As both mothers were found the parallel values within each other it helped them relate and form not only form a partnership but a strong sense of trust with each other. We are able to learn from the film that trust is formed when two individuals are not only are in need of each other but tends to have the same values in a manner and through