What Breaks the Ice

Greetings again from the darkness. We've seen movies where the seasonal residents interact with the locals, and often the class differences come into play. The term for northerners who head south for the winter is 'snowbirds'. In the Hudson Valley, we learn the 'townies' have a nickname for the rich folks who come for the summer ... 'Joy Riders'. This is the first feature film from writer-director Rebecca Eskreis, and she displays a real feel for the contrast that exists between these two groups.

Madelyn Cline (BOY ERASED, 2018) stars as Emily, one of the wealthy 'joy riders' who befriends local townie Sammy (Sofia Hublitz, who is so good as the daughter in "Ozark"). For no good reason, other than Madelyn's boredom, the two girls become friends. They hang out, play tennis, and have lunch together. One night they are at a party and things go bad with Sammy's creepy stepbrother Travis (Joel Allen, THE PURGE, 2019). The event not only tests the friendship of Sammy and Emily, but also reveals character and secrets from the past.

The film opens with a cool shot of Hudson Valley, and in fact, cinematographer Greta Zozula does a nice job through the entire film. As you would expect with teenagers, things get complicated, and the class difference is only part of what makes the story and characters interesting. Supporting roles are filled by Lukas Gage ("The White Lotus"), Aimee Mullins ("Stranger Things"), and Shakira Barrera ("GLOW"), but most of the heavy lifting here comes courtesy of Ms. Cline and Ms. Hublitz, despite both being a bit too old to play teenagers.

Not quite at the level of THOROUGHBREDS, a similar movie from 2018, the film certainly proves Rebecca Eskreis is a filmmaker to follow. She understands small town dynamics, class disparities, and female friendships ... and does so in a way that's grounded and realistic. There is no staginess to this production, and we have a real feel for the characters almost immediately - a tribute to the actors and the script.

In theaters and on Digital beginning October 1, 2021.

As "What Breaks The Ice" (2021 release; 99 min.) opens, we are in Cold Spring Village, NY and summer has just begun, when the place receives all of the Manhattan families for the summer. A local girl, Sammy, strikes up a conversation with a Manhattan girl, Emily, and they hit it off. It's not long before they become BFFs, even though there is significant economy disparity between their respective families... At this point we're 10 minutes into the film.

Couple of comments: this is the feature-length debut from writer-director Rebecca Eskreis. (Even more noticeably, when the movie's end credits rolled, every single important position within the film's production and post-production is filled by a woman.) There are several familiar themes in this film, including the "coming of age" of two 15 yr old girls, the economic disparity between the 'poor' local girl and 'rich' out of town girl, etc. But the film does steer away from the predictable when about 40 min. Into it, there is an incident. OF course I'm not going to spoil what the incident is, but suffice to say that the impact on the two girls is enormous. Sofia Hublitz ("Ozarks"), who bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Laura Dern, is outstanding as Sammy. Madelyne Cline (as Emily) looks a bit too old for a 15 yr old character. But in the end, what kept my attention in this film is the wonderful story-telling by Eskreis. Check out the scene late in the movie when a local female cop relays a story from her youth to Sammy. Just beautiful.

When the end credit rolled, the film has a 2019 copyright notice. I'm guessing its release was delayed multiple times due to COVID. "What Breaks the Ice" recently started streaming in Showtime, and is now available on SHO On Demand and SHO Anytime, where i caught it the other night. If you are in the mood for a coming of age story that comes with a different twist, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

I though the movie was good. Decent plot line and edge to it. The writers could have done better to explain what was actually happening vs what the characters believed and knew. But the actresses played it well and if you pay enough attention yourself it's easy to get it.

A complete nothingness of a movie with nothing to root for, nothing to remember besides very dark screen at night and bright one at day with sad, sad, sad faces. It's not even depressing, it's a compote of psychology, girls in their twenties who look like thirties and so much slow-paced edited cuts that after a while you just see the colors of the photographies, their clothes, furnitures, asphalt and trees.

Glad that it wasn't made as a mini series.

• Screenplay/story: 3
• Development: 6
• Realism: 4.5
• Entertainment: 2
• Acting: 4
• Filming/photography/cinematography: 4.5
• Visual/special effects: 4
• Music/score: 5.5
• Depth: 5
• Logic: 4
• Flow: 1.5
• Drama: 2
• Ending: 1.

This is a very thoughtful movie, beautifully made and yes, rather slow. This isn't a movie for a John Wick audience. But that shouldn't deter you from watching. The sensitive and authentic portrayals of the two teenaged girls hooked me from the start. I found it interesting to watch their friendship unfold, and ultimately transform, because it seemed so real that you forget these are actors. But I am begging authors and film makers to please take more time to think about the names of your works. Anything that starts with "what" or "when" or "how" followed by some vague phrase is immediately forgettable. If I wanted to recommend this film to my friends, I wouldn't be able to, because I can't rem7 TV byember the name. And what does ice have to do with it?