Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) isn't just living on the edge. She's clinging to it by nibbled frozen fingernails in Massena, N.Y.

Her husband is a gambler who disappeared with the down payment for their double-wide trailer. She works at a dollar store where the young unsympathetic manager won't bump her from part time to full time.

The mother of boys ages 15 and 5 -- one who understands her dilemma all too well, one who swallows the lie that Dad is on a "business trip" -- Ray has nothing but popcorn and Tang in the house, is elated when she finds an extra $5 for gas and is about to lose the rent-to-own TV that dominates the drafty, cramped trailer the family now occupies.

When she is forced, at gunpoint, to smuggle illegal immigrants across the frozen St. Lawrence River and into the States, Ray sees the risk and the cash involved. One outweighs the other as she becomes an unlikely accomplice to a Mohawk woman named Lila (Misty Upham), who lives on the reservation straddling the U.S.-Canadian border.

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'Frozen River'

3 1/2 stars = Very good
Ratings explained

• Starring: Melissa Leo, Misty Upham.
• Rating: R for some language.
• Web site: sonyclassics.com/frozenriver

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Together, they try to keep their heads above water (and ice) as they navigate a series of worlds -- white and Native American, legal and illegal, struggling mothers and everyone else. Is it inevitable their luck will run out and, if it does, what sort of price will they pay?

Courtney Hunt wrote and directed "Frozen River," a big winner at the Sundance Film Festival this year, based on her short film of the same name.

It's her first feature, and coming, as it does, from a woman who holds a law degree from Northeastern University and a bachelor's from Sarah Lawrence College, it's remarkably in touch with the sort of people who rarely turn up in movies unless as comic relief. They're the folks who work in dollar stores or bingo halls and hunt for change under the couch cushions.

Hunt wrote the film after learning about real-life women who supplement their incomes by smuggling aliens and shot it in 24 wintry days in Plattsburgh, N.Y., and it looks authentically cold and isolated. But her best move was signing Leo, best known as detective Kay Howard on "Homicide: Life on the Street" and now in "Righteous Kill" in a small role as a grieving mother.

Leo deserves Oscar consideration as much as any actress tackling a more glamorous role. She has dark circles under her eyes, feathery lines above her lips from smoking, a smattering of tattoos that look cheap instead of exotic and hair that could use a good cut and update.

Early in the movie, as she tries to apply mascara while crying, a losing proposition, her weary face is a portrait of false determination melting into sadness and desperation. Later, she proves how tough she can and must be.

The relationship between Ray and Lila doesn't spring from or descend into cliche. It's not born out of some "Thelma & Louise" or chick-flick friendship forged over chardonnay and pedicures but it evolves into an authentic bond. While Upham's role isn't as showy, she deserves equal credit for the movie's success.

"Frozen River" requires you to make a leap of faith about one miraculous turn, but it demands the same from its characters. The river may be frozen but the emotions, tension and drama flow freely.

Opens Friday at the Regent Square Theater, Edgewood.