A mom looks for another source of income, when her husband leaves with the money meant for the new mobile home. A nearby Indian territory stretches across the border to Canada with a drivable frozen river between. Smuggling?
Takes place in the days before Christmas near a little-known border crossing on the Mohawk reservation between New York State and Quebec. Here, the lure of fast money from smuggling presents a daily challenge to single moms who would otherwise be earning minimum wage. Two women - one white, one Mohawk, both single mothers faced with desperate circumstances - are drawn into the world of border smuggling across the frozen water of the St. Lawrence River. Ray and Lila - and a New York State Trooper as opponent in an evolving cat-and-mouse game. —anonymous
Ray Eddy lives in a broken down mobile home with her husband Troy, and their two children, fifteen year old Troy Jr. (T.J.) and five year old Ricky, in the border town of Massena, New York. Just before Christmas, Troy, a gambling addict, deserts the family to an unknown destination like he has many times before to gamble away the family's money, which is little to begin with. The final payment is due on the new larger and more modern mobile home on which they've placed a down payment, money which Ray doesn't have, the substantial down payment which will be forfeited if the balance is not paid when due. Her job as a part-time clerk at a dollar store - a job which she's had for two years, and where she has long been promised full-time status without it happening - isn't even enough to put food on the table, she feeding the kids popcorn and Tang for dinner. Ray has an antagonistic initial chance encounter with a young Mohawk woman named Lila Littlewolf, she widowed with a one year old son, Jake. Lila, much like Ray, is in dire financial straits, with her mother-in-law having assumed custody of Jake. Despite their antagonistic feeling toward each other, Ray ends up joining Lila in her illegal activities in smuggling illegal aliens into the US from Canada driving across the frozen St. Lawrence River through the Mohawk Reservation, which straddles the border. Lila is doing it so that she can get Jake back from her mother-in-law, while Ray, knowing the dangers, only plans to do it until the final mobile home payment is made. Ray needs Lila as she knows the smugglers involved and knows the process, while Lila needs Ray as no one on the reservation will sell her a suitable car - with a trunk that opens with a pop button - knowing that she would be using it for such illegal activity, she having been caught and arrested before. Ray also being Caucasian lends an air of legitimacy to Lila's movements. As they get closer and closer to their end goals, Ray and Lila get a clearer picture of the very human stories of the people with who they are involved, and they may be willing to take increasingly greater risks to reach those goals faster. Through it all, T.J., who has no idea of his mother's illegal activities, may be ill prepared to be the man of the house, both in being the sole caregiver to Ricky and dealing with any issues of a financial nature and/or with the broken down mobile home. —Huggo
Left all alone to take care of her two sons after her gambling-addicted husband abandons her, the hard-working and nearly penniless minimum-wage store clerk, Ray Eddy, is rapidly nearing her breaking point. Against the backdrop of unbearable insecurity in the snow-capped United States-Quebec border, the desperate mum crosses paths with the equally hopeless Mohawk mother, Lila Littlewolf, who introduces Ray into a lucrative ring of human traffickers who smuggle illegal immigrants across the frozen St. Lawrence River. Now, as an uneasy partnership forms, a reluctant Ray realises that driving people across the border in the boot of her inconspicuous Dodge Spirit pays well; however, she is still one run away from fulfilling her noble aspiration. Lila and Ray swear that this will be their final trip. Will the frozen river let them? —Nick Riganas
Ray Eddy (Leo), an upstate New York trailer mom, is lured into the world of illegal immigrant smuggling. Broke after her husband takes off with the down payment for their new doublewide, Ray reluctantly teams up with Lila (Upham), a smuggler, and the two begin making runs across the frozen St. Lawrence River carrying illegal Chinese and Pakistani immigrants in the trunk of Ray's Dodge Spirit.
The film is set in the North Country of Upstate New York, near the Akwesasne ('Where the Partridge Drum') St. Regis Mohawk Reservation and the Canadian border, shortly before Christmas. Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is a discount store clerk struggling to raise two sons with her husband, a compulsive gambler who has disappeared with the funds she had earmarked to finance the purchase of a double-wide mobile home. While searching for him, she encounters Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham), a Mohawk bingo-parlor employee who is driving his car, which she claims she found abandoned with the keys in the ignition at the local bus-station. The two women, who have fallen on hard economic times, form a desperate and uneasy alliance and begin trafficking illegal immigrants from Canada into the United States across the frozen St. Lawrence River for $1200 each per crossing.
Ray's older son T.J. wants to find a job and help support the family so they can afford to eat something more substantial than popcorn and Tang. He and his mother clash over whether he should remain in high-school and look after his little brother Ricky or drop out to work. To make matters worse, T.J. sets an outside corner of the trailer afire with a torch in an attempt to unfreeze the water pipe. Lila longs for the day she will be able to reclaim and live with her young son, who was taken from her by her mother-in-law immediately after his birth.
Because the women's route takes them from an Indian reservation in the US to an Indian reserve in Canada, they hope to avoid detection by local law-enforcement. However, their problems escalate when they are asked to smuggle a Pakistani couple and Ray, fearful their duffel bag might contain explosives, leaves it behind in sub-freezing temperatures, only to discover it contained their infant baby when they arrive at their destination. She and Lila retrace their route and find the bag and the baby, which Lila insists is dead, but which she revives moments before being reunited with the baby's parents. The experience leaves her shaken, and she announces she no longer wants to participate in the smuggling-operation. But Ray, needing just one more crossing to finance the down payment on her mobile home, coerces her into joining her for one last journey.
They pick up two Asian women from a strip club for crossing. When the club owner tries to short them, Ray successfully threatens him with a gun. When she is re-entering her car, the irate club owner retaliates by shooting Ray in the ear. Shaken, her fast and erratic driving catches the attention of the state police. Ray tries to elude capture by crossing the frozen river where one of the wheels of the car breaks through the ice. The four women abandon the vehicle and take refuge at the Indian reservation.
Because the police are demanding a scapegoat, the tribal head decides to excommunicate Lila for five years due to her smuggling history which involved the death of her Mohawk husband. Surprised then saddened by the news, Lila gives in to Ray's pleas to go free for the sake of her children. However, running through the woods, Ray has a fit of conscience and returns. She gives her share of money to Lila with instructions for taking care of her sons and seeing through purchase plans for a trailer home. She and the illegal immigrants are surrendered to the police and a trooper speculates she will have to serve four months in jail. She calls her son T.J. to explain what has happened.
Lila pushes her way into her monther-in-law's home and reclaims her infant son. She and the baby show up at the Eddy trailer while T.J. is still on the phone with his jailed mother. In a day scene, T.J. completes the welding of a bicycle-propelled carousel bearing his younger brother and Lila's strapped in baby. He pedals the carousel while Lila smiles on. A truck nears carrying the new trailer home.