Dead of Winter Movie Review
Seemingly taking notes from Liam Neeson’s career in the last 2 decades, Emma Thompson takes the icy, cold plunge into the action-crime-thriller genre with Dead of Winter. Bringing her immense acting talent to the screen once more, Thompson balances the emotional weight of a grieving widow, and the adrenaline pumping tension of being caught up in a crime to anchor a film that has glimpses of cinematic greatness sprinkled throughout a slightly disjointed and tonally jumbled affair.
Set in snowstorm ridden rural Minnesota, Barb (Thompson) is travelling to Lake Hilda to fulfil her late husband’s wish of having his ashes scattered in the place where he and Barb had their first date – ice fishing on the lake. However, an odd interaction with a stranger, bloodied footprints in the snow, and screams in the distance cause Barb to stumble upon a cabin holding a kidnapped young woman, leading her to an encounter with two criminals and a sudden fight for survival.
Director Brian Kirk has created such a tense and claustrophobic atmosphere in Dead of Winter, both visually and tonally. The vastness of the Minnesotan icy lakes seem endless and beautiful, but are also a reminder of how trapped everyone in this film is during the winter storms. The coldness is viscerally felt through the screen, and just gives the films overall tone an extra touch of darkness that exacerbates the true terror that is occurring.
Kirk also succeeds at creating and maintaining tension during some unsettling set pieces. There are many moments where characters have to quietly sneak around rickety, creaky places in a cat-and-mouse way, and the way Kirk shoots these moments is unbearable in the best way a thriller can be. This feeling is also doubled down in the sporadic, yet impactful moments of action and violence that bloodily blast onto the screen with shocking impact.
Thompson is the standout and anchor of the film, managing to give an incredibly physical performance as she evades the villains and attempts to rescue the kidnapped young woman. But, it’s also a performance fuelled by a woman grieving, and how she funnels that pain into this quasi-action-heroine role. Barb is a sweet lady, something that is shown in her first interaction with the stranger at the beginning, and it’s a great testament to Thompson’s performance as she creates such an empathetic character who has the kindness pushed to a limit she’s never experienced before.
Judy Greer and Marc Menchaca play the unnamed duo responsible for the kidnapping (credited respectfully as Purple Lady and Camo Jacket), and both give complex, layered performances that don’t feel stereotypically evil, but giving more of a desperation behind the malice. As the story evolves, and the motives are revealed, there is an interesting twist in the narrative, but not one that necessarily matches the tone that the film has set prior, but gives a solid understanding into some of the choices behind Greet and Menchaca’s performances, which overall are solid.
Where Dead of Winter falls apart is in the narrative structure. Barb as a widow, and her mission to spread her husband’s ashes opens the film and establishes a decent enough reason to be invested into her as a protagonist. However, at various times throughout the film, there are flashbacks to a young Barb and her husband that have no overall impact on the current day events, ultimately bringing the tension to a screaming halt, messing around with the pacing. Dead of Winter already had a slow burn sentiment to it, which worked to build up the tension, but slowing it down even more took a lot of the punch out of it all. The film also doesn’t necessarily have reveals and twists feel set up or earned, leading to a messy third act. However, the film’s ending itself is impactful enough to leave the film on a high note.
Dead of Winter sees Emma Thompson in a role like one we haven’t seen from her, and she successfully manages to balance this new venture into a darker action-thriller role with her dramatic talents that creates a character you can truly empathise with. Even though there are great moments of tension, the overall structure of the narrative is too disjointed and underwhelming for the film to work as a whole.
Dead of Winter is in Australian cinemas November 27
