Frozen River

A plug: Go see, or rent, the film "Frozen River." Wondefully acted, beautifully written, surely directed. It's about a white far upstate New York woman struggling to survive, economically, who links up uneasily with a younger Mohawk woman to smuggle illegal immigrants across the frozen St. Lawrence River. Americans avoid depressing films, about Iraq, about poverty. This is as honest a look at poverty in America today, and racism, and loneliness, that you could imagine. It's hardly a triumph-of-the-human-spirit bit of phony uplift. And yet it grips you and it holds you and you feel better about the human race when it's over.