Melissa Leo, Frozen River

Just as Marion Cotillard and Julie Christie blossomed last year into
Oscar certainties, Melissa Leo's towering performance as a
never-give-up single mother in Courtney Hunt's Frozen
River won't be forgotten or ignored come awards season.
Native New Yorker Leo, a veteran of the Homicide series
who won accolades as Benicio Del Toro's explosive mate in
Nine Grams, talks about the ups and downs of an artist's
life. As Ray Eddy, a woman with two sons whose gambling addict
Indian husband has run off with their savings and the family car,
Leo's been blessed with what may be her defining career role. Shot
in upstate New York where a river and a Native American reservation
divides America and Canada, Frozen River puts Ray in
harm and the jailer's way when she agrees to
help smuggle undocumented immigrants across the border.

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