‘The Dead Of Winter’ review: Emma Thompson saves the day in this formulaic thriller

Dir: Brian Kirk. US. 2025. 97mins.

Emma Thompson again proves what a versatile star she is in The Dead Of Winter, not only convincing as a have-a-go heroine unexpectedly trying to save a damsel in distress but also single-handedly rescuing this film from the worst of its formulaic elements. Indeed, lying beneath the icy surface of director Brian Kirk’s thriller is a lake of gooey warm sentiment that’s deep enough to drown in.

Periodically there are hints of what might have been

The Dead Of Winter will be released by Vertical in North America this autumn after premiering in Locarno Film Festival’s glossy Piazza Grande section, and Thompson’s star quality, along with Judy Greer in support, should help it attract a crowd.

Thompson plays Barb, the sort of person who might be called a “good old girl” in certain circles. Like an older relative of Fargo’s Frances McDormand character Marge Gunderson, she’s practical and determined and doesn’t like to cuss. She’s also grieving the loss of her husband and about to make a pilgrimage with his ashes in a tackle box at his request as the snow piles down in northern Minnesota (played with bleak majesty by Finland).

Not quite sure how to get to the lake she is looking for, she stops at a ramshackle cabin to ask for directions from its gruff occupant (Marc Menchaca). But the patch of “deer” blood on the snow outside is the first indicator Barb is unlikely to have a peaceful trip. 

Once at her icy destination, Barb barely has time for one of many flashbacks to happier, warmer-lensed times (in which Barb is played by Thompson’s real-life daughter Gaia Wise, alongside Cuan Hosty-Blaney as her husband) before she spots a girl (Laurel Marsden) trying to outrun her kidnapper, who is the backwoodsman from before. Once the girl is captured and taken away, the older woman retraces her steps back to the cabin. There, with the kidnapper handily away — one of many conveniences of Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb’s screenplay — she spies the younger woman tied up in a basement.

As Barb sets about a rescue plan, Thompson comes into her own. Unlike, for example, Helen Mirren’s gun-toting assassin in Red or Dale Dickey’s hard-bitten granny in The G, Barb is essentially a sweet-hearted but resourceful type who has to put her glasses on to read the small print. Thompson is careful to make sure we catch Barb’s regular aches and pains before she starts getting shot at, which adds considerably to the tension — when she sews herself up with some fishing line, we feel every moment.

The gruff cabin owner turns out to be a henchman for his wife (Judy Greer), who is the real antagonist of the piece. But Greer’s villain is so thinly drawn that she isn’t so much a character as, essentially, a dangerous mood on legs — she is only described as “Purple Lady” in the credits. Details of her backstory are negligible, but we know she’s desperate, dependent on fentanyl, and ready to kill. 

Periodically there are hints of what might have been, not least in an emotionally rich scene between Barb and the male kidnapper that allows a surprising amount of sympathy for the devil. This and his conversations with his wife go underexplored. Meanwhile the unnecessary flashbacks between Barb and her husband — which merely serve to act out a sense of what has been lost that Thompson is more than adequately conveying on her own — repeatedly steal the thunder of the thriller elements. 

21 Bridges director Kirk has also directed television episodes of The Day Of The Jackal and Luther, and his pacy approach to the material is on his side. Even as things keep happening conveniently, such as Barb finding a hammer in the snow at the exact moment she needs to smash a window, there isn’t too long to dwell on them. The attractive camerawork from Christopher Ross shines during a full-throttle, elemental showdown on the lake. In a cold, unforgiving world, Barb’s selflessness also warms the heart.