“FROZEN” (Film Review)

  

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Written by Greg VictorcloseAuthor: Greg Victor Name: Greg Victor
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About: Greg Victor (Parcbench Culture Editor) is a historian, pop culture critic, and theatrical dramaturg and has stage managed theatrical productions on Broadway and on tour, including Billy Joel's "Movin' Out", Monty Python's "Spamalot" and more.See Authors Posts (197) on February 15, 2010

**½ (out of 4)

Director: Adam Green
Rated: R (strong language, disturbing images)

“Frozen” (which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival) stars Shawn Ashmore (“X Men”), Emma Bell, and Kevin Zeger. It tells the harrowing story of three skiers who are stranded on a chairlift. It’s just another day on the slopes for the three snowboarding friends, but by the time the day is over they will be forced to make choices that may mean the difference between freezing to death or living. “Frozen” has something for almost everyone’s fears; fear of heights, claustrophobia, fear of freezing, and other nightmares I don’t want to spoil for the viewer.

“Frozen” is the latest in what is becoming a sub-genre of films in which the dramatic tension arises from the strict confines and limitations placed on the characters. It all started with Alfred Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat” and will continue when the next one, “Buried” (starring Ryan Reynolds) comes out.

As for “Frozen,” it is all about what might happen when a ski weekend takes a downward slope. When the ski patrol switches off the lights and closes the ski-lift for the week, as bad weather moves in, the three realize that they’ve been left dangling in the freezing night sky. They are very high up, with no way down. Soon frostbite and hypothermia set in, they are forced to take desperate measures. I won’t give too many of the details, in case anyone reading this decides to see “Frozen.” But I will say that there are challenges to their safety that don’t come immediately to mind.

Writer and director Adam Green does a good job of setting the tone. He creates a tension from the outset and maintains it over the course of the film. I particularly like the macabre touch of having the characters discuss what the worst way to die might be, as they sit waiting for the chairlift to kick back on at the beginning of their ordeal. Also to his credit – as you watch the film, you really begin to feel the power of winter. The look of the film is precise and effective.

But unfortunately the tension doesn’t sustain itself. Any movie based on the idea of being trapped on a chair-lift is bound to be a half-hour too long. This isn’t a film that I would recommend to everyone, but I enjoyed it some of it, and can’t stop thinking about it days after viewing it. It is a mess, to be sure, but at least the premise of the film is original. Part of the success of “Frozen” is the way that it teases the audience by drawing out what we know will eventually happen. In that way, it pays homage to classics like “Jaws,” a film that the characters in the film even make small talk about.

The actors all do a fine job bringing a touch of realism to a ridiculous situation. Shawn Ashmore is particularly good. He has a likable quality that helps you get emotionally involved, especially when you are watching characters onscreen face almost certain death. Emma Bell tries hard to play against the “she kind of deserves what she’s going through” aspect that comes with starring in any horror flick. But when her face starts falling apart from frostbite, I kind of lost interest in watching her close-ups.

“Frozen” isn’t great. It isn’t even good a lot of the time. The dialogue could have used a re-write, that’s for sure. And maybe if it had a bigger budget it could have benefited from a musical score that would have added another level of artistic achievement. But “Frozen” is original, tightly edited and very economical in its storytelling. For these reasons, I give it two-and-a-half stars and hope to see more from the young director who filmed it. To see a director learning how to make something with almost nothing is always promising.

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