Emma Thompson vs. Judy Greer thriller

Entertainment

Hollywood has always clung dearly to its unofficial pension pipeline for fit, male actors of a certain age with the grizzled geezer action genre. For any game aging actor, if you’ve got a head of grey hair, a face full of wrinkles, and some remaining core strength, there’s usually a virile place for you to land far away from Shady Acres. But this isn’t really the case for the ladies of Hollywood, which is why any exception to the rule is worth attention. In the rare example of Lou, Allison Janney played an ex-CIA field agent misanthrope who goes on a backwoods mission to save her granddaughter’s life. It was raw and realistic, with a feminine point of view to its brutality. Following in Lou‘s footsteps is Dead Of Winter, where Emma Thompson plays Barb, a hardy Minnesotan widow whose solitary journey of mourning is bluntly interrupted by a psychotic opioid addict up to no good. The contemplative Dead Of Winter showcases everything great about Thompson as an actress and adds “survival thriller heroine” to her already deep resume of entirely plausible skills.

Ironically, Dead Of Winter has a primarily male creative team behind it, with director Brian Kirk (21 Bridges) working from a screenplay by Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb. However, they wisely not only cast Thompson as their lead but hired the perennially great Judy Greer to don her bad-girl pants, pitting her against both Barb’s Midwest smarts and Minnesota’s terrible winters. The result is an absorbing film that nimbly works as both an introspective meditation on loss and a battle royale between two smart, scrappy, resourceful women, each with an intractable end goal. 

Working with cinematographer Christopher Ross (Shōgun), Kirk establishes a stark, minimalist landscape and cold palette for Barb as she traverses icy winter roads in her beat-up pickup truck. She’s on a singular mission to arrive at a remote lake before an impending blizzard. However, she gets a little off course in the cold wasteland and drives up the lane of an isolated cabin where a man chops wood near a car with a gun on its dash and snow spotted with fresh blood. Barb gets some terse directions and gets back on course, finding the lake and setting up a traditional fishing shack.

Of course, she’s not there for the walleye, but to reflect on her recently deceased husband, Carl, and their lifetime together—one that included time spent on this lake. Snippets of their life together play in golden flashbacks, giving a taste of their genuine love within the austerity of their modest life running a bait and tackle store. Unfortunately, Barb isn’t allowed to grieve in peace: Gunshots herald the arrival of that odd man, along with a badgering woman, as they chase a screaming young woman. Hiding near her truck, Barb observes the violence as they drag the girl back into the woods. She knows that she can’t leave her to such a fate. 

What ensues is a cat-and-mouse escalation between Barb and Greer’s ruthless Purple Lady (named for her coat color), who is the fentanyl lollipop-chomping brains of this kidnapping operation. Their competence at outwitting one another is the engine that powers this lean story, as Barb and Purple Lady wage war for possession of the young captive Leah (Laurel Marsden). In a film of this ilk cast with male leads, the focus would likely be on kill shots and the bloody one-upmanship between sides. But Kirk and Thompson keep the warfare grounded, rooted in the simple, analog life that unknowingly prepared Barb for such a preposterous moment. The glimpses into her memory not only work as a powerful juxtaposition to the Purple Lady’s marriage dynamic, but also as a thoughtful way to reveal Barb’s character over time, and to earn the narrative’s conclusion. 

While the action is thrilling in its escalation, Dead Of Winter is really a showcase for both Thompson and Greer to exist outside of familiar Hollywood archetypes: second-fiddle mother, supportive wife, long-suffering girlfriend. Instead, Thompson gets physical, looking entirely comfortable in the cold terrain, while Greer delights in playing a desperate woman as selfish as Barb is selfless. Marsden fleshes out the triangle, more than holding her own against her titan co-stars as Leah rises to the occasion to help save herself.

Much like its locale, Dead Of Winter is a sparse but engrossing thriller, one that excels because of the nuanced work of its cast and Kirk’s focus on Barb’s grief amid the chaos. But aside from its savvy casting choices, what the film has to say about how the bonds of love fundamentally changes a person is what lingers long after the last snowflakes fall.

Director: Brian Kirk
Writers: Nicholas Jacobson-Larson, Dalton Leeb
Starring: Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Gaia Wise, Laurel Marsden, Brían F. O’Byrne
Release Date: September 26, 2025



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