Here’s a Christmas movie for our times: Frozen River

Frozen River (2008) stars Melissa Leo as Ray Eddy and Misty Upham as Lila Littlewolf, white and Native American women trying against all odds to provide for their children.  They live on the Mohawk reservation near the New York/Quebec border.  Ray’s husband, an addicted gambler, has left with the balloon payment Ray was saving for delivery on a double wide trailer.  Lila lives in a camper in the dead of winter.  Lila can’t really do any job because she can’t see and doesn’t have glasses.  Ray works in a low paying retail job, and though she’s been at her job two years the manager won’t promote her.  He favors another woman, and suffice it to say, not for the other woman’s punctuality or good work.
    
Ray gets involved, by chance, with Lila, in the treacherous smuggling of Chinese and Pakistani illegal aliens across the frozen St. Lawrence River.  It's extremely risky but pays fast cash.  I won't spoil the plot, but I will say the story is well-paced and engaging.  I will also say that Ray has racist attitudes she obviously learned, but gradually gains empathy as she realizes her own plight is little different from anyone else who struggles for a better life.  Poverty is poverty, and these women, no matter what their race, mainly want to bring their children up and out of poverty.  So, they do what they have to do, dangerous or unscrupulous, to make a life for themselves and their children.  Given the chance, in desperate circumstances and in their shared struggle, they choose, when they can choose, to do what is right. 

This is a Christmas movie for our times.  According to the September 2011 U.S. census report, last year another 2.6 million people slipped below the official poverty level.  Currently, 46.2 million people live below the poverty line; almost half that number live in deep poverty.  Meanwhile, the gap between the richest and poorest continues to grow in the U.S.  (Source: New York Times, September 13, 2011.)