{"id":168851,"date":"2025-09-25T17:57:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T17:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/168851\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T17:57:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T17:57:12","slug":"dead-of-winter-review-emma-thompson-turns-action-hero-and-it-unexpectedly-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/168851\/","title":{"rendered":"Dead of Winter review \u2013 Emma Thompson turns action hero, and it unexpectedly works"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Perhaps there comes a time in every actor\u2019s career when they must Liam Neeson<\/a>. In Dead of Winter, it\u2019s the blithe and witty Emma Thompson<\/a>\u2019s turn to learn \u201ca very particular set of skills\u201d<\/a> up in ice-clogged Minnesota, as she \u201cfrickin\u2019 fiddlesticks\u201d her way into the centre of a kidnapping plot committed by a snarling, fentanyl lollipop-sucking Judy Greer<\/a> and her witless husband, played by Marc Menchaca. <\/p>\n

Director Brian Kirk, alongside writers Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb, offer a nicely plausible mise-en-sc\u00e8ne for Thompson\u2019s Fargo<\/a> accent and puffy snowsuit to run wild, yet the actual mechanics of this pared-down thriller are harder to swallow. Here, it\u2019s not enough that there\u2019s a Chekhov\u2019s gun at the centre of play \u2013 the film has to treat said narratively significant object like it\u2019s a powerful, sacred relic.<\/p>\n

Thompson\u2019s Barb has made her way back to the remote frozen lake where flashbacks reveal she spent her youthful days with her late husband (Barb is conveniently played by Thompson\u2019s daughter Gaia Wise in these scenes). Her past is served out in amuse-bouche portions, with a tendency to stall the film\u2019s tension, and punctured with lingering shots of his wooden tackle box. Though the film will be released in cinemas, there\u2019s a sense it\u2019s been shot with half-asleep viewers at home in mind.<\/p>\n

For Barb, this barren spot represents the cradle of her life\u2019s love, and she walks around practically cocooned in her rose-tinted lens. It doesn\u2019t bother her too much when she stops to ask for directions (it\u2019s been a while, after all) and is greeted by a monosyllabic Menchaca, whose response to a puddle of blood at his feet is simply, \u201cdeer\u201d. But there is, in fact, a teen girl (Laurel Marsden) tied up in the basement, who Barb eventually finds and vows to liberate with a \u201cI\u2019m not leaving ya, sweetie!\u201d<\/p>\n

Greer plays her nameless antagonist as a kind of striking viper, magically appearing around corners to berate her husband for being too nice and cough up some blood when convenient. What lends Dead of Winter its evocative chill is the way all three women here \u2013 kidnapper, kidnapped, and rescuer \u2013 are left with nothing but themselves to rely on. There\u2019s no one out here to care for or support them, turning survival into a daily matter of physical and psychological endurance.<\/p>\n

\"EmmaEmma Thompson as Barb in the action thriller \u2018Dead of Winter\u2019 (Vertigo Releasing)<\/p>\n

When Barb is forced to perform first aid on herself, slathering the wound in alcohol and then stitching it up, Thompson makes clear this is a woman of nature \u2013 who has worked until her muscles tore and her body turned blue \u2013 without tripping into stoic heroism. \u201cJust like sewing a quilt!\u201d she tells herself, as the needle makes contact with flesh. <\/p>\n

Barb\u2019s North Star state wholesomeness is certainly intended as a contrast to all the death and brutality (it was for the Coens, too), but the actor always veers away from the punchline<\/a> at the last minute \u2013 her handle on the accent is strong enough, and her \u201cwell, whaddya know\u201d attitude to disaster is carefully underplayed. I can\u2019t imagine this signals the start of a career change for Thompson, but it\u2019s a refreshing little detour for one of Britain\u2019s national treasures. <\/p>\n

Dir: Brian Kirk. Starring: Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Laurel Marsden, and Br\u00edan F. O’Byrne. 15, 98 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u2018Dead of Winter\u2019 is in cinemas from 26 September<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":["post-168851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}