Dead Of Winter

 I was going to a leaving do this afternoon, but the trains to Llandudno had been cancelled, and I couldn’t face the replacement bus service 

So I went to Chester to see Dead Of Winter

Emma Thompson is an actress that convey pure emotion in a look of a single gesture. I am remembering her famous silent weeping scene in Love Actually or that single shriek of hope at the end of Sense and sensibility. 

In the thriller  Dead Of Winter she plays the recently widowed Barb. A gentle country woman who ran a bait and tackle business in rural Minnesota. The marriage ( which we see in brief flashbacks) is a happy one and clearly grieving, we watch with interest this sixty something heading out into a snowstorm to do some ice fishing. Here the drama takes a dark turn as Barb comes across an isolated cabin in which a teenage girl is being kept hostage, and without hesitation we see Barb morph into an unlikely hero, using her knowledge of country ways and the lake in winter in order to save the girl from a truly evil abductor couple ( Marc Menchaca and Judy Greer)

There is limited dialogue and plenty of action , as the likeable, polite and humble Barb, take on the bad guys. She’s not an infallible hero, but she is brave and resourceful and even as the action and the tension rises to a crescendo we always see the grief in Thompson’s face as she remembers happier times, and so we understand the reasons why she returned to the fishing lake at such an inhospitable time. It’s a great performance all told, with Thompson on great form, and her one and only gentle speech of hope to the teenage girl is a tour de force in the actress’ career