Watching Dead Of Winter is a tense 98 minutes in the cinema, and moments of relief are few and far between. Emma Thompson is stunning as Barb, who sets out to Lake Hilda during a snowstorm and witnesses a young woman’s abduction.
In the middle of icy nowhere, with no phone signal and her car out of action, Barb takes it upon herself to rescue the young woman.
Thompson’s performance is convincing and determined, with shades of Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson in Fargo. She plays Barb as a woman with steely determination – and occasional ruthlessness – in increasingly dire circumstances.
You are truly left with the impression that, if you’re ever abducted by a psychopath, you’d want her on your side, stubbornly coming back again and again to sort it all out. Give me more older women saving the day in films, please.
Barb is grieving her husband and the forays into loving nostalgia feel a little incongruous at first amidst the brutal coldness of the rest of the film, but the flashbacks provide backstory that explains some of the choices she has made. The jumps in time initially feel like a distraction, but ultimately provide moments of warmth and an explanation of why, and how, Barb is where she is.
The freezing surroundings are such a theme, however, that the snow and ice almost become characters in their own right. The unrelenting blizzard made me feel the chill and want to wrap myself in a blanket as I watched, and the bleakness of the surroundings reinforce the sheer misery of the storyline.
There is visceral and explicit violence in this film – and at one point, looking away from the screen (something I don’t often resort to) was no comfort; the squishing sound effects made absolutely clear how gross what the braver people in the audience than me were watching.
There are also, unfortunately, points where director Brian Kirk lost me altogether, including one stunt worthy of Home Alone, and choices that just made no sense (why did Leah have duct tape over her mouth in a place with nobody for miles and gunshots going off with gay abandon?).
If you’re ever abducted by a psychopath, you’d want her on your side, stubbornly coming back again and again to sort it all out
However, Emma Thompson As Action Hero is a theme I want to see again and again and again.
Other than Barb and the kidnapping victim, we don’t know the characters’ names. The man and woman at the centre of the drama were played by Judy Greer and Marc Menchaca with skill, the former character showing remorseless focus and the latter the kind of amoral resignation that can lead to absolute horrors.
The young woman who is kidnapped, played by Laurel Marsden, is the least fleshed out of the four main characters and felt somewhat two-dimensional, but Marsden does as good a job at looking terrified with duct tape over her mouth as it’s probably possible to do.
Much of Dead of Winter is carried by facial expressions alone, with Thompson, Greer and Menchaca conveying everything from delight to terror, alone on the screen and surrounded by little other than inclement weather and grimness. The (very, very) occasional moments of humour come mostly from Barb, and provide much-needed – albeit brief – relief from the otherwise relentlessly ominous story.
I can’t say I enjoyed this film, but it was gratifying to see an older woman being resourceful and physical as the kind of hero Hollywood doesn’t normally platform. Thompson’s acting skill soars in Dead of Winter and this suspenseful, character-driven film is worth a watch.
Just take an extra jumper with you to the cinema, because you will feel like you need it.