Ice Blue is a 2019 thriller about a girl who feels a wedge grow between her father and recently returning mother as a dark past consumes them.
In the far off countryside of Canada, soon-to-be sixteen-year-old, Arielle (Sophia Lauchlin Hirt) lives somewhat secluded on a farm with her father John (Billy MacLellan). She is home-schooled and spends much or her time tending to the animals and doing chores. From the city comes Christian (Charlie Kerr), an older boy who has arrived in the area as part of a “scared-straight” program, challenging the young girl in ways she’s never experienced. More troubling though is the arrival of her mother Maria (Michelle Morgan), long estranged from the family, bringing with her a host of secrets from the past.
A small film shot on location in Alberta, director Sandi Somers‘ Ice Blue centers on the young Arielle as she lives in a world of sudden, new awakenings, her complacent life on the farm disrupted by changes she has no control over, including her feelings for Christian. Arielle also believes her father to be perfect, but he hides from her a curious past, made all the more so when Maria shows up, their stories not quite lining up.
What we get then is a kind of coming-of-age story with a hint of psychological thriller, though neither are strung together as tightly as they could, Somers confident in writer Jason Long‘s story but a little uneven in giving it the tension or heavy-hitting emotional thump it sort of feels demanding of. Christian is a bald-faced rebel in his long hair and leather jacket, prompting Arielle to test some rebelliousness of her own, finding out while off the farm that some things are not what they seem about her parents, though the young man is more than he looks and acts. A tenderness in him is the first step in opening Arielle to a greater truth.
It all comes in small reveals and one or two impactful punches, somewhat subdued as the truth around an illicit relationship and an accident in Arielle’s childhood come to reshape her life. But what is true and what is not? That’s perhaps the most endearing thing about Somers’ film, Arielle’s transformation, defined by events out of her control, giving Ice Blue a tragic edge. That’s helped a lot by Hirt’s fragile performance, one that is constantly shifting as the layers unpeel.
Well written and acted, Ice Blue is an earnest little story that maybe grasps for more than it can but is nonetheless a challenging experience that tries to tackle a few tight twists in a young girl’s life, one tangled in menace. This all leads to a graphic end where even more truths are exposed, putting Ice Blue firmly in the ethereal as it toys with a haunting ambiguity, launching the film into new territory. Maybe some will see this coming well before it gets there, and maybe more, it will teeter the whole thing over the line. The fact that this is something needing to be considered makes this effort worth a look.