Adam Green’s Frozen [Sundance 2010]

A common theme I’ve been noticing at Sundance this year is fear in unlikely and abrupt circumstances. Films like Buried, Nowhere Boy and Adam Green’s Frozen follows suit. The story follows three friends blowing off school to spend the weekend skiing at a resort in Maine. These three friends are young, beautiful and have everything going for them which makes it hard for some to like and follow along with their journey. The two traits this group has which eventually becomes their undoing is charm and hubris.

After bribing a minimum wage ski lift operator to ride the ski lift for cheap, these three friends find themselves trapped in the middle of the ride. Alone on the lift and the resort closed for the next five days. The three must figure out how to find help before the bitter cold sets in leaving them vulnerable to frost bite, starvation and, shockingly, a pack of wild wolves circling the ski lift.

Frozen is a very solid film. It’s full of thrills and excitement, terror and suspense. In fact, Adam Green does do a fantastic job creating suspense and continues to build upon that scene after scene until the climax of movie comes in act two. Each relationship shows how brutal the elements are on the human body.   How they have the will to simply live isn’t enough to actually live is a chilling reminder that bad things happen to random people all the time   . The cast of this film is also very solid. They are engaging, sympathetic and you can easily yourself in these situations and probably act the same way.

The film does suffer from its third act. It seems like Adam Green used his best tricks in the second act and has nothing left for the third. But I do feel despite the faults of the third act, this film holds up and is worth seeing, especially in a theater full of people. This was a very rewarding experience.