FROZEN Review: Shirley Henderson, Richard Armitage d: Juliet McKoen

FROZEN (2005)

Director: Juliet McKoen

Cast: Shirley Henderson, Roshan Seth, Richard Armitage, Jayne Ashbourne, Les Audley, Nick Bagnall, Jamie Sives

Screenplay: Juliet McKoen and Jayne Steel

Recommended with Reservations

Shirley Henderson, Frozen

The tale of a young fishery worker obsessed with the mysterious disappearance of her older sister, Frozen is a curious mélange of psychological drama and metaphysical mystery-thriller. The end result is an equally mixed bag. The story, though conceptually intriguing, lacks coherence, while Scottish actress Shirley Henderson is seriously miscast as the borderline-pathological heroine.

On the positive side, Frozen director Juliet McKoen ably captures the atmosphere of gloom and emptiness of a drab fishing town on Britain's northwestern coast. Another plus is the film's final revelation: although it trails several farfetched plot developments, Frozen's very last frame is both surprising and disturbing.

So, what to do when your sister has disappeared without a trace for more than two years? When police investigations begin winding down, Kath Swarbrick (Henderson) decides to take matters into her own hands. A strange glitch on the CCTV footage of Kath's sister on the day of her disappearance seems to reveal some bizarre clue about the matter; or is it all the workings of Kath's ever more unbalanced mind?

Inspired by a couple of real-life stories — and possibly owing some key plot elements to Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 mind-trip Blowup — co-screenwriters McKoen and Jayne Steel have concocted a generally engrossing tale of loss and obsession. Unfortunately, Kath's obsessive search for the truth fails to become the basis for a first-rate suspense thriller largely due to numerous holes in the narrative that require major suspension of disbelief.

The worst of those takes place near the end, when a crucial — and absurdly contrived twist — takes Kath on a life-threatening path. The fact that the ultimate dénouement remains effective is a testament both to McKoen's talent as a director and to the intrinsic qualities of the basic storyline. A little more care with the logical setup of the preceding sequences would have turned Frozen into a considerably more affecting experience.

An undue emphasis on the CCTV footage, which is played ad nauseam throughout the film, is another distraction. The scenes showing the video footage of the missing girl, although important as an indication of Kath's neuroses and of the video's chief role in the story, at times feel like a gimmick — whenever in doubt about how to proceed with the plot, show the same video footage one more time. Instead, the screenwriters should have spent more time developing the relationship between Kath and her clergyman counselor (Roshan Seth), and providing us with a better understanding of both the friendly dockland security manager (Richard Armitage), who may have something to hide, and the lowbred Jim (Jamie Sives), the missing woman's former fiancé.

Henderson, for her part, has to carry the film on her own. She valiantly tries to accomplish that task, but is unable to fully convey Kath's sense of loss and despair, resorting instead to poor-little-girl looks and exclamations that, coming from an actress in her late 30s, feel coy rather than endearing. [Addendum: Others clearly disagreed, as Henderson eventually went on to win Best Actress honors at both the Marrakech Film Festival and at the Bafta Scotland Awards.]

Despite its shortcomings, Frozen has solid qualities that should be once again reiterated. Besides the story's intriguing setup, McKoen's desolate fishing village (shot at and near Morecambe Bay) feels and looks real, while Richard Armitage is a solid screen presence as the friendly but cautious security manager. Additionally, Frozen offers a series of starkly beautiful images captured by Philip Robertson's lenses (by way of high-definition digital equipment). Those are crucial in enhancing the quasi-ghostly mood of the story and characters, especially at the film's haunting conclusion.

Reviewed at the AFI FEST.