As "What Breaks The Ice" (2021 release; 99 min.) opens, we are in Cold Spring Village, NY and summer has just begun, when the place receives all of the Manhattan families for the summer. A local girl, Sammy, strikes up a conversation with a Manhattan girl, Emily, and they hit it off. It's not long before they become BFFs, even though there is significant economy disparity between their respective families... At this point we're 10 minutes into the film.

Couple of comments: this is the feature-length debut from writer-director Rebecca Eskreis. (Even more noticeably, when the movie's end credits rolled, every single important position within the film's production and post-production is filled by a woman.) There are several familiar themes in this film, including the "coming of age" of two 15 yr old girls, the economic disparity between the 'poor' local girl and 'rich' out of town girl, etc. But the film does steer away from the predictable when about 40 min. Into it, there is an incident. OF course I'm not going to spoil what the incident is, but suffice to say that the impact on the two girls is enormous. Sofia Hublitz ("Ozarks"),who bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Laura Dern, is outstanding as Sammy. Madelyne Cline (as Emily) looks a bit too old for a 15 yr old character. But in the end, what kept my attention in this film is the wonderful story-telling by Eskreis. Check out the scene late in the movie when a local female cop relays a story from her youth to Sammy. Just beautiful.

When the end credit rolled, the film has a 2019 copyright notice. I'm guessing its release was delayed multiple times due to COVID. "What Breaks the Ice" recently started streaming in Showtime, and is now available on SHO On Demand and SHO Anytime, where i caught it the other night. If you are in the mood for a coming of age story that comes with a different twist, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

A wealthy girl comes to vacation and befriends a townie with issues. They spend most of the time partying, drinking and hanging out with boys. An incident happens, and they struggle to over come it and it ends with a very unrealistic ending. A pretty boring and pointless movie.

By the the two female main actresses, in this teenage summertime drama, where rich mingles the ''poor ruralist'' in a place called yorktown, up northeast N. Y., a rural environment thats known for its beauty and silence and recreational opportunities, where the rich comes to their summerhouses to spend their summertime there.

So as a beautiful friendship blossoms between the rich and the poor, the stakes are high and the lingering feeling of independence hits both as love strikes a bolt in their relationship, and on top of that lots of alcohol and stuff makes decision making consequencefilled. An accident happens in affect with tragic outcome, and the balance between rich and poor is put to the test...

so if youre in your summer cabin for the autumn holiday, do consider using a time off to view this drama even though you might think this is just another teenage drama, but its a strong and relatable story that youll drag to your heart, because all the signs of teenage hormonal and experimental uproar and freedome seeking that all of us elders can reminisice and relate to, and the young ones of today might take notice from. Even though its a bit twisted in the end and there are some abrupt flashbacks and a lack of a smooth timeline to the story, its still hangs on to me ''the day after''.

So being named the guru, when we had an urdu/weak norwegian speaking doctor many years ago at my nursing home workplace, the grumpy old man thinks this is a wellmade, a high risk income project, that will be recognized for a great casting, lovely score selection ,by the mingling of two different universes of economy,emotions and family structures, and most of all a profound friendship, therefore a huge recommend.