Icebound

 Icebound 2003

• Director: Roger Spottiswoode
• Seen by this director: A Street Cat Called Bob, Tomorrow Never Dies
• Based on the book by Jerri Nielsen
• Cast: Susan Sarandon, Aidan Devine, Cynthia Mace
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Susan Sarandon – Cloud Atlas, Emotional Arithmetic, Romance & Cigarettes, Alfie, Moonlight Mile, The Banger Sisters, Igby Goes Down, Anywhere but Here, Cradle Will Rock, Dead Man Walking, Little Women, The Client, Lorenzo’s Oil, Thelma and Louise, White Castle, The January Man, Bull Durham, Witches of Eastwick, Atlantic City, The Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Aidan Devine – Suicide Squad, A History of Violence
• Why? Antarctica. Susan Sarandon
• Seen: 15 January 2022      

       Doctor Jerri Nielsen (Sarandon) flees the world and joins team od scientists at the South Pole. She suffers immediately from culture shock. She resents the equality and job-sharing of the team, the gossip and total lack of privacy, the fanatically strict rules on hot showers and recycling, the primitive and badly equipped clinic, the pranks and raw humour, everything but the doctoring itself.

       Gradually she comes to terms with everything and everyone and slowly they begin to appreciate her.

       Then she discovers a fast-growing lump in her breast. With sketchy Internet connection, the help of her colleagues and an emergency airlift, she is diagnosed with cancer. She treats herself.

       A most unusual feel-good, disease-of-the-week film. Based on a true story, although the real Nielsen didn’t like Sarandon’s portrayal of her. Too grouchy and unlikeable at the beginning. I think Sarandon is terrific and her character seems much deeper than the real life one (sorry).

       Maybe I also connect so much because I’ve also been treated for breast cancer, fortunately by professionals in Stockholm in one of Europe’s best hospitals, and I cringe at everything she went through. But she didn’t lose her eyelashes. I did. Every single hair on my head and body – poof! Gone.

       The visuals and the rest of the cast are great. 

4* of 5.