Emma Thompson and Judy Greer are among the most versatile and capable character actors of their respective generations. You may have notions of them when you hear their names, but they have undeniably built incredible careers on never staying still and always making their next step the polar opposite of their last. So it is quite remarkable that despite their having embodied just about every character you could imagine, it still feels like they are both playing against type in Brian Kirk’s Dead of Winter. They play two very different but very real women who cross paths under the most fraught and unexpected of circumstances, and end up in a fight to the death. It may technically be considered an action film (though I’d define it more as a thriller), but don’t let this fool you into thinking that Thompson is suddenly getting her turn at the Liam Neeson-style twilight years action hero makeover. What is so enjoyable about her character here is that she is just a regular woman, and when danger arrives, it is her resourcefulness, wisdom, and ordinariness that keep her going.
What Is ‘Dead of Winter’ About?

Emma Thompson is Barb, although we only find that out in the closing minutes because there is nobody in this story who knows her well enough to call her by name. She’s a widow living in a sweet little trailer in the frozen wilderness, and one day, she heads out into a blizzard to go fishing at a remote lake. The weather intensifies, and along the way, she stops at a cabin to ask for directions. There she startles a strange, shifty man (Marc Menchaca), who doesn’t seem particularly pleased to see her. There’s blood in the snow, but she accepts his explanation of hunting and goes on her merry way. She gets to the lake and, while fishing, reminisces about her late husband Karl and the wonderful times they had at this very spot in decades past. Then suddenly, she hears gunfire, and a young woman runs for her life into the clearing, only to be accosted and dragged away again by that same shifty man. This throws Barb into a thoroughly unexpected rescue mission, and as she goes digging to try and help the young woman, she comes to realize there is more to this kidnapping. Judy Greer rocks up as the rifle-wielding wife of the shifty man (apologies for the lack of names, but the movie gives none. Greer is credited as Purple Woman and Menchaca as Camo Jacket), evidently the orchestrator of the violence, and when she realizes that some old woman is trying to free their captive, she goes on a rampage through the wilderness to prevent it. As the movie goes on, the reasons for all this come to light, and they are admittedly compelling ones. We’ve no shortage of kidnapping thrillers, so engrossing performances and solid reasons for the kidnap are musts to make a movie stand out — Dead of Winter gives us all of the above.
‘Dead of Winter’ Delivers a Golden Trio of Acting

She may be versatile, but it is seldom, if ever, that we have seen Thompson venture further than her English origins. Here she plays an American very much in the vein of a Kathy Bates or Frances McDormand character — Marge from Fargo springs to mind. She’s a simple country woman, full of pleasantries and good intentions, and perhaps doesn’t realize that she can be irritating in her sweetness and simplicity. She almost certainly doesn’t think herself anything special, and in the thriller genre, she isn’t. She doesn’t have a basement full of guns, or years of military training, or anything that would indicate that she is a badass. She is just a woman with decades of experience in life, nature, and people. These are the tools in her arsenal, and she doesn’t think twice when the occasion calls for her to use them. Greer, meanwhile, is the opposite. She’s intense, erratic, and full of anger, but only wants to save her own life. The problem is, the only way she can think to do so is very risky and very illegal, and Barb happens to find herself in the middle of it, so she has to be killed. Between them is the rather pitiful shifty man, who ends up being nowhere near as evil as he first seems. Menchaca plays him with nice range, and once the tables are turned on him, he becomes a poor, pathetic thing that you actually feel quite sorry for. The actor even does a scene where he walks naked through the snow, and you can’t help but admire the whole gang for what they must have endured on the shoot. It’s not The Abyss, but it must have been physically and mentally uncomfortable, and each one of them turns in really impressive performances. Sometimes you see an actor at work, and you’re reminded of how difficult it is to make the unreal feel real. Thompson, Greer, and Menchaca give us three real people, caught in a fraught battle, all with their own fears and motives, and it is much to their credit and to that of writers Nicholas Jacobson-Larson and Dalton Leeb, that it is never as simple as good guys versus bad guys. You understand what each of them wants from this whole sorry situation, and each is justified in that want.
‘Dead of Winter’ Is a Bold, Captivating Wilderness Thriller

Dead of Winter posterImage via Vertical

In such an image and beauty-conscious time, it is bold and refreshing to see actors, particularly women, who are willing to dominate the screen without being airbrushed to within an inch of their lives. Greer’s character is ill, and she looks it. Thompson’s character is old and has spent her life living in the middle of nowhere, and she looks it. Menchaca is slowly dying, and he looks it. There’s blood, sweat, tears, snot, wrinkles, cries, and puffy eyes, and it’s with all these elements that reality is conjured. It’s difficult to really connect with a piece that feels too perfect, because that sense of unreality takes you out of its world. You’ll see it in period pieces: people’s teeth are too straight and white, their complexions too clear, their features just too modern-looking to believe. Action thrillers often fall into the same trap because, hey, who’s going to watch if the characters aren’t chiseled, somehow cleanly-shaven Abercrombie and Fitch models, despite their harsh surroundings?! By embracing the dirty, unfair, imperfect aesthetic of the story, the movie invites you into its reality and allows you to really settle into its world. This is not untrodden turf for director Brian Kirk, who notably directed three of the best episodes of Game of Thrones in its first season. That should tell you a lot about his aptitude for creating atmosphere with nature’s resources, and for getting stellar performances out of talented actors. From Thompson’s slightly stiff gait, which could be due to age, the cold, her puffy snowsuit, or a combination of the three, to Greer’s unbridled rage at the injustice of it all, Kirk really lets these actors take the material to whatever length they see fit, and it works a treat. At almost every turn, the action avoids the usual pitfalls that such setups encounter, and ends on an unexpected note that is at once tragic and quite heartwarming. It’s an engrossing thriller that reels you in with its unconventionality and offers up something different in a largely uniform genre. Dead of Winter comes to theaters on September 26.

Release Date

September 26, 2025

Runtime

97 minutes

Director

Brian Kirk

Writers

Dalton Leeb, Nicholas Jacobson-Larson

Producers

Greg Silverman, Jon Berg, Maximilian Leo, Jonas Katzenstein

Pros & Cons

Emma Thompson and Judy Greer give astounding, engrossing performances in a fight to the death.
A stellar score and considered cinematography create a tense, bleak landscape.
The movie avoids all the corny pitfalls of such stories and characters.