Winter of Frozen Dreams (2009)

terrible... so disappointed.

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Stiff film that's confusing at times. Thora Birch portrays a college drop-out with an IQ of 145 who drops out to become a prostitute.She meets up with an ugly older man who she will kill after getting him to sign everything over to her. The film deals with her continuous suspicion of her boyfriend, the latter helping her in disposing of the body. She uses two names which is never fully explained and has an assortment of hoodlum like guys on the side.Keith Carradine portrays the older detective on the case. At the beginning he announces that he will not retire as he wouldn't know what to do with himself. By the middle of the film, without explanation, he talks that this will be his last case as he is retiring. With a poor script like this, he shouldn't have ventured into this production to begin with.Actress Thora Birch displays a cold veneer as the sadistic killer. By the way, why did she really use 2 names?

Thora Birch made a vivid impression with her talent, her carefully flat affect and her poetic appearance in "American Beauty". Now, in "Winter of Frozen Dreams", all three qualities are back on display. Her ghostly complexion haunts the film, in which she is the centerpiece femme fatale.The film, set in a small town in mid-winter, has an unusually strong sense of colour and a very successful handling of visuals overall. Both the anti-heroine and the landscape from which she emerges are carefully pictured and scorchingly cold.Keith Carradine wins out with dialogue, as the jaded detective about to retire. His character follows the trail of Thora Birch with one wry remark, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, after another.As a portrait of a brilliant psychopath, the film kept me rooted to the spot as I studied Birch's careful depiction.

This is not a major film by any means. It is a good, well made & acted minor thriller, that deserved a better release & treatment from the critics & distributors.It only played in one theatre for only one week this past April.With some decent advertising & proper promotion it would have done much better.The story is based on a real life murder case in Madison Wisconsin the 1970', & it does have the feel to it. Thora Burch is the main character & she proves to be quite good in a hard to do role. Newcomer Brendon Sexton 111 is fine as the young man involved. Veteran star Keith Carrqdine is the chief police investigator & as usual he delivers.There are no car chases or explosion, next to no nudity or bad language.It is not a film for children & that is the only reason for its R rating. At times its a wee bit hard to follow, but stay with it, as It fast moving.Rent this, I am sure you will agree with me.Ratings: *** (out of 4) 86 points (out of 100) IMDb 8 (out of 10)

Having read the book on which film was based, I was initially unsure as to how the film makers would be able to piece this story into a mere hour and an half. After all, it is very difficult to meld all of the details of this intricate story into a concise, yet still intriguing film. In my opinion this film pulled it off brilliantly.I particularly liked the casting. Thora Birch was great and has really come into her own as an actress. Why she is not a bigger star, baffles me. Keith Carradine was fun to watch, as he has been in so many of the roles he has had in his long career, and Brendan Sexton is certainly a young actor to keep our eye on. What impressed me most was the fact that this film looks like it was shot in the time period it is portraying. It does not look like some glossy Hollywood piece trying to represent a period in which most of those involved probably barely remember. I did however find the use of heavy color saturation to represent the flash backs difficult to follow at first. All in all, I really enjoyed this film. It is not your average Hollywood fare and that is just the type of movie I want to see.