Amazing performance by Thomas Hayden Church.
The movie opens on a very dark and blizzardy night in Northern Quebec, when a drunk man driving a small snowplow hits and kills a man standing in the middle of the road. The driver steals the man’s wallet and tries to dispose of the body by burying him under the snow. As his headlights begin to fade into the distance, you then see him go off-roading, recklessly driving until he finally crashes against a tree in the middle of nowhere. He wakes the next morning and begins to flashback to past events leading up to that fatal night. It is then that the viewer realizes that the driver knew the man he struck, and that it was probably intentional, and not an accident.
Bruce (Thomas Hayden Church), looks through the man’s wallet, his ID card, his cash, and begins to reflect back on their past conversations over beers in his house. Paul inquired about Bruce’s wife and Bruce shares that he is recently widowed, and that his wife died of cancer. Paul shares a story about his vacation in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and asks if he can crash on his couch for a few nights. The sense that this man has hit financial hard times is conveyed.
Meanwhile (in real time), the plow is stuck, is running out of gas, Bruce is cold and hungry, and is afraid to turn himself in. He practices what he would say to an officer when and if he does get caught or does decide to turn himself in.
An interesting dark comedy about a man trapped in his own igloo prison.
WINNER Best New Narrative Director at the Tribeca Film Festival 2013!
1worldcinema.com