Emma Thompson and Judy Greer star in a tense crime drama set against frozen lakes and chilling betrayals
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
If you like “Fargo” and the “country dramas” of writer Taylor Sheridan (“Hell or High Water,” “Yellowstone”), check out “Dead of Winter,” the Emma Thompson-led crime drama set right in the troubled heart of America (but filmed in Finland and Germany).
Meet Barb Sorensen, whose name we won’t learn until near the end of the film. She’s a gray-haired Minnesota widow who decides to jump into her old Ford truck and drive into a “white out” storm to get to a remote lake to go fishing (or so she says). Driving over a long bridge, where she encounters only a big rig and a snowplow, we see a river that is frozen solid. Veteran Irish director Brian Kirk (“Game of Thrones,” “The Day of the Jackal”) and cinematographer Christopher Ross (“Shogun”) give us wintry nature shots to set the mood and scene. The score by Academy Award winner Volker Bertelmann (“All Quiet on the Western Front”) is mournful without being weepy.
“Dead of Winter” may be a generic title (there are, like, five other films with the same name). But it’s workable here. In a flashback, we see young Barb (Gaia Wise) and her future husband Carl (Cuan Hosty-Blaney) on a frozen lake on a fishing expedition, complete with a tiny ice-fishing cabin.
On her way to Lake Hilda, as it is named, Barb carries a small, blue tackle box with her in the truck and stops at a cabin in the woods to ask for directions. She frightens a beardo loner (Marc Menchaca, “Ozark”) wearing headphones and carrying a load of freshly chopped wood, which he drops, scattering it all over the snow. There’s a large bloodstain nearby. “Deer,” he says.
At the lake, Barb hears handgun shots fired and sees a young woman (Laurel Marsden) fleeing from the man at the cabin, who’s wielding a scoped Colt .45 pistol. Back at the man’s cabin, Barb sees the young woman chained to a post in the man’s basement, tape covering her mouth. Barb promises not to leave by writing the message on the glass of a window. We will soon learn that she is dead serious.
Written by first-timers Nicholas Jacobson-Larson, who is better known as a composer, and Dalton Leeb, an actor, “Dead of Winter” has some surprises in store for us. The unique villain of this piece of backwoods, blood-stained storytelling is a real piece of work. She is not even named. In the credits, she is identified only as “Purple Lady” because of the color of her hooded coat, and she is played by the great Judy Greer. What we eventually surmise is that she is the beardo’s wife, a former operating-room nurse, who got hooked on fentanyl. She can be frequently seen with fentanyl lozenges, which are applied to the inner cheek like a lollipop, sticking grotesquely out of her mouth. She carries a scoped, high-powered rifle and knows how to use it. We also learn through flashbacks that the old truck was new when Barb and Carl lost their first child in childbirth. The screenplay by Jacobson-Larson and Leeb builds the backstory nicely and eventually lets us know the real reason for Barb’s trip to the lake.
Thompson, who has two Academy Awards, one for acting (“Howards End,” 1993) and one for writing (“Sense and Sensibility,” 1996), has lost none of her power or charisma. She sounds Midwestern enough for me. She also serves as the film’s executive producer. “Dead of Winter” has a great, gritty hero in Thompson’s Barb. She takes a licking and keeps on ticking, and even goes Rambo, sewing up her own gunshot wound. We can forgive some of the rough edges of the storytelling when we get both Thompson and Greer as leads. Greer’s “Purple Lady” scares the bejesus out of us and her husband, who might not be as bad as he appears. She’s dying, we are told (we assume from chronic opioid addiction), and she has some diabolical plan that will make it necessary to kill the girl. In a moment of hopelessness, Barb tells the terrified girl the story of her “great-great-grandfather Ivor and how he weathered a massive storm in the open with nothing except an ox and a bag of grain. I’m not making any great claims for “Dead of Winter.” However, the writing, acting, directing, and score are notably above average, and I’m going to bet that when it hits a streaming service, it will be in the top 10.
‘Dead of Winter’
Rating: R for violence and language.
Cast: Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Laurel Marsden
Director: Brian Kirk
Writers: Nicholas Jacobson-Larson, Dalton Leeb
Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes
Where to Watch: In theaters
Grade: B+
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