Emma Thompson pulls up her snowpants and pulls down her stocking cap for Dead of Winter (now streaming on HBO Max), an odd little thriller set in the depths of a – you betcha – grim Minnesota winter. Director Brian Kirk’s genre exercise is an increasingly rare star vehicle for Thompson, best known for the literary adaptations that won her an Oscar for acting (Howard’s End) and screenwriting (Sense and Sensibility), and for the acidic wit she displays in smaller scene-stealing roles (Matilda the Musical, the Bridget Jones films). But Dead of Winter finds our beloved thespian going less Dashwood and more, well, Rambo than we might’ve ever expected – to our delight more than our dismay.
The Gist: If there was a month firmly wedged between the misery of January and the agony of February, it would be Minnesotuary. Well, as far as the movies go, anyway. No surprise, then, that Barb (Thompson) is profoundly unhappy. Although to be honest, it has more to do with her new status as a widow. We meet her as she looks longingly at an old Polaroid of herself and her hubs in a younger, happier moment we see played out in flashbacks (Young Barb is played by Thompson’s real-life daughter, Gaia Wise: adorable!), when two pups sweet on each other parked on Lake Hilda to crack a couple of brewskis and go ice fishing. An outdoorsy type, Barb’s fully at home in this bitter cold under gray skies. Her and Karl’s rustic mobile home was a cozy love nest isolated in the middle of a frigid forest. I’m not sure if they were noisy sex-havers, but if so, no one would’ve heard them but the moose and wolves.
Barb reminisces sadly about their inability to conceive and Karl’s vacant, dementia-stricken final days. Everything about her is weathered – her home, her land, her clothes, her truck, her kitchen, her face. Especially her face. It’s been through a lot recently, and now she’s about to trek back to Lake Hilda to spread Karl’s ashes. She warms up the ol’ 1970-something stickshift pickup truck, loads up the ol’ fishing shanty and grabs the ol’ cell phone that tells us she’s either 20 years behind or the movie is set 20 years ago, not that it matters, since where she’s going, there’ll be no service, especially when she really needs it. That’s just the way it goes in this type of movie.
Many years have passed since she’s been to the lake and the snow’s coming down hard so Barb follows the kachump of axe-on-wood to a fella whose name we never learn (Marc Menchaca). She asks for directions, notices the pistol in his El Camino and eyeballs the splash of blood in the snow. “Deer,” the fella says with all the conviction of a cat with one paw in the tuna casserole. Okey doke. Barb moseys on to the lake, where she sets up and suddenly – poww. Another: poww. She sees Leah (Laurel Marsden), hands bound, running, but our unnamed fella, gun in hand, catches her. It’s pointless to convey Barb’s inability to call the authorities since I’ve covered that already, so she takes it upon herself to investigate the situation.
Meanwhile, the fella’s unnamed wife (Judy Greer) comes home looking like hell – bags under eyes, jaundiced – and hitting fentanyl lollipops like Frank Booth to the nitrous. When she learns about Barb’s visit, she gets pissed, so she and her fella grab the deer rifle and set off to do some huntin’. But Barb smelled that coming. Barb sneaks into the house and finds Leah tied up in the basement. There’s some ugly, shady-ass shit going on here. Did Unnamed Fella and Unnamed Wife just cross paths with the wrong Minnesotan? Not really, but it’s safe to say they underestimated her at least a little bit.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Dead of Winter is distractingly Fargo-coded at times, with bits of farce-capers a la A Simple Plan and a hint of First Blood wafting up from the bouquet.
Performance Worth Watching: Although Greer channeling Dennis Hopper is rather succulent, this acknowledgment belongs to Thompson for channeling Rambo by way of Marge Gunderson, gritting her teeth to sew up her own wound and delivering the line “Frickin’ fiddlesticks shit buns!” with all the poise and grace it deserves.
Sex And Skin: One brief bare dude butt.
Our Take: This at-times ridiculous but entertaining B-thriller seems vaguely undignified for Thompson – especially for those of us who swooned over her in ’90s Merchant-Ivory gems like Howard’s End and Remains of the Day, and Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing and Dead Again. But in the years since, she’s shown an impish sense of humor in many of her smaller roles, as well as a game-for-anything versatility comparable to Ralph Fiennes. Dead of Winter blends the latter points with a dash of earnestness that resembles Liam Neeson’s recent rash of dad-movie thrillers, which mix a little oh-my-achin’-back weariness into boilerplate action-flick plots.
Crucially, you won’t walk away from the film accusing Thompson of fetishistic Midwest cosplay. Barb’s grief is too palpable in the veteran actor’s hands. Same goes for the desperation that defines Greer’s character; both stars tightrope the line between sincerity and elbow-in-the-ribs winking satire. Director Brian Kirk might’ve made a more entertaining film by leaning heavier into dark comedy, and staging a more memorable showdown between our aw-shucks protagonist and her audacious foil, but as it stands, Dead of Winter holds its own thanks to its modest ambition.
The film doesn’t have much to say beyond its depiction of Midwestern verisimilitude in the face of adversity, with Thompson skewing selfless and Greer, selfish. Its cartoonishness is more acceptable than its earnestness, especially when enduring its quasi-poetic cornball ending, and the plot holes and lapses in logic are generally forgivable in a movie nobody should take too seriously. Kirk amplifies the harshness of the landscape, Thompson winks in the general direction of camp and everyone goes home having had a reasonably good time.
Our Call: Thompson and Greer give Dead of Winter plenty of life. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.