Amazon.co.uk Review
Asian American director Ang Lee sums up America in the early 1970s by focusing on the arrival of the sexual revolution in the 'burbs. Isolationism within a family, consumerism, and selfishness are personified by a cast that captures the self-obsession within two New England families. As the children struggle awkwardly with adolescence, their parents stumble through sexual experimentation. In the days of Watergate and Vietnam, society is breaking boundaries and ignoring convention. Following suit, these families are eschewing polite barriers and social taboos, with disastrous results. The Ice Storm of the title refers not only to a natural phenomenon but is a (rather heavy-handed) metaphor for a pervasive emotional temperament. The entire cast delivers textured, finely nuanced performances. This movie lingers in the psyche not only for the scope of the tragedy at its conclusion, but for Lee's often humorous and stingingly accurate assessment of pop culture. Based on Rick Moody's novel, this won the best-screenplay award at Cannes in 1997. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Customer Reviews:
A moving and fantastic film.......2007-09-12
This film is a must have for anyones collection. Wonderfully directed by Ang Lee this film depicts America in the 1970's and its sexual liberation. Sigourny Weaver and Kevin Kline play neighbours having an affair. Whilst their marriages are clearly on the ropes their children are mixed up too indulging in 'games' that are a little too grown up for them. The Ice Storm comes and with it an event that changes everyones lives and provides an opportunity to reflect on what they have all become. This is a film that tells a story in an adult way. It doesnt dumb it down to cater for the masses. Its moving, intense and above all powerful. Add this to your collection now!
Hidden gem.......2007-08-29
Brilliant! Is 'The Ice Storm' one of recent cinema's best kept secrets? Hardly anyone I know has seen this film - and yet I find it hard to think of a more beautiful and moving "American family drama." Is it better, even, than 'American Beauty'? Quite possibly. Simply put, this is a moving, perfectly told, superbly acted film. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Icicles.......2006-05-30
It's ironic that the warmest and most humane of movie directors, Ang Lee ("Sense and Sensibility," "Brokeback Mountain") is the director of the icy-cold (weather, of course and tone) and surgically precise "The Ice Storm."
Lee's innate humanity makes itself known in his handling of the characters here: he never judges, he never points a finger...he shows, he doesn't tell. It is a slippery slope though as the Rick Moody source material veers towards condemnation of this particularly randy and supposedly "swinging" group of mid 1970's couples and their children.
The wasp adults: a cold, cold, man-eating Sigourney Weaver as Janey Carver, a trying to be hip but lacking the wherewithal to pull it off, Joan Allen as Elena Hood and a "not-there" Jamey Sheridan and pseudo-hip but really just horny Kevin Kline as their respective husbands Jim Carver and Ben Hood...form the odd quartet of 30 somethings, probably used-to-be 60's hippies either in deed but most likely just in thought. Both couples have two children: also in various stages of rebellion and angst.
The signature scene in "The Ice Storm" is the Key Party: a ritual party in which the husbands put their keys in a bowl and at the party's close, the women pick a set of keys thereby picking the man with whom they will have sex that night.
Lee's camera swoops and swirls around all the guests as we catch snippets of conversations: affairs are concluded, gossip is exchanged, discrete and not so discrete flirting happens, much liquor is consumed and gallons of white lipstick is applied...Lee let's us in on all of it. And he does it without rancor, without an agenda and always with his patented warmth and love.
Arguably the best film of 1997 ("The Sweet Hereafter" is it's equal that year also), "The Ice Storm" is ultimately a tragedy of Classical Greek proportions: the world of this film is icy cold as are many of its inhabitants but Ang Lee's blazing humanity warms and soothes revealing an open wound of despair, indecision and loneliness.
Cold and stark.......2006-01-01
I, personally, was not alive in 1973. But the immensely underrated Ang Lee gives a glimpse into the 1970s suburbia when society went through a dramatic shift. A good thing? Don't be so sure. Lee strips away the illusions to reveal the loneliness and coldness in the wake of the sexual revolution.
The Carvers and the Hoods live next door to each other in an affluent suburban neighborhood. On the surface, all is well. But self-absorbed Ben Hood (Kevin Kline) is having an affair with the icy Janie Carver (Sigourney Weaver). Similarly, his precocious daughter Wendy (Christina Ricci) is "experimenting" with Janey's sons, the spacey Mikey (Elijah Wood). To make things worse, Ben's wife Elena (Joan Allen) is experiencing a bit of a crisis herself -- she suspects her husband is cheating on her, and she longs for the freedom and lack of care she had before her marriage.
After Ben finds Wendy and Mikey in a compromising position with a Nixon mask, and Elena clues in about Janey, the parents venture to what turns out to be a wife-swapping key party (the women take men's car keys out of a bowl and go home with covers New Canaan, their relationships will reach boiling point... and a tragedy will unfold.
I don't know how common these attitudes were in the 1970s, but undoubtedly they were a lot more common than people would like to remember. Such things as key parties seem almost alien now. Tobey Maguire's Paul Hood serves a vital function in this movie -- he's very normal, not into any sort of transitional weirdness (except pot smoking) and so can serve as an alter ego for the viewers.
Lee did a good job not just with the exquisite direction and the camerawork. He also doesn't overemphasize the sudden shifts in what was allowed and what wasn't -- in one scene, the adults calmly discuss watching "Deep Throat." As they speak, there's the nervous awareness that it was unacceptable for upper-middle-class suburbanite not long ago. They have drugs, free love, self-seeking... and they don't have the slightest clue what to do with it.
Lee overdoes it a little with the ice metaphors. The dead leaves and trees were a lot better. But he does do an expert job showing why loveless sex and distant families will only leave a person lonely. The families here talk a lot, but they don't speak. Even a simple question like "How's school?" or "What are you doing?" is enough to weird out the kids -- that's how far they are from their parents. Wood's only statement in the "making of" sums this up: "The parenting is just... it's all WHACKED!"
He tempers all this heavy stuff with humor, such as Janey coldly telling Ben that she doesn't need "another husband" prattling golf stories at her, or Mikey's comical confusion when Wendy offers to get intimate while wearing a Nixon mask. There are a lot of "seventies" things sprinkled through the movie, from the makeup to the toe socks (toe socks?), the TV shows, the hair, the clothes (Weaver's zippered jumpsuit, for example). But Lee doesn't really smack you in the face with it.
Kevin Kline is as good a serious actor as he is a comic one. When someone leers that he wishes people had brought their young daughters to the key party, Kline's expression is worth a thousand words. Weaver is always outstanding as a very cold woman who still has some affection for her kids; Allen is excellent as a woman whose feelings are bubbling past her icy exterior. Ricci mixes sophistication and vulnerability as the Nixon-obsessed Wendy. And Wood gives off a sort of ethereal feel as the spacey but sweet Mikey, a boy obsessed by molecules.
This is far from a feel-good movie, but it gives some undefined views into human nature, what is good for us and what isn't. Ang Lee took what could have been a disaster, and made it as cold and beautiful as an ice storm.
Charms, moves and treats the senses...an honest delight.......2005-07-22
A beautiful, existential melancholy malaise is created in a wonderfully realised 70s white middle class US suburban town where adolescent and middle aged "friends and neighbours" explore fulfilment within their daily lives amid a changing social and political landscape.
The great ensemble cast deliver a sharp script in a perfectly paced and superbly shot melancholy story. And as autumn drifts into winter their struggle for something pure, untainted and lasting reaches a tragic climax on the night of an almost ethereal "ice storm".
A charming and moving treat for the senses that lingers...
Amazon.co.uk Review
Asian American director Ang Lee sums up America in the early 1970s by focusing on the arrival of the sexual revolution in the 'burbs. Isolationism within a family, consumerism, and selfishness are personified by a cast that captures the self-obsession within two New England families. As the children struggle awkwardly with adolescence, their parents stumble through sexual experimentation. In the days of Watergate and Vietnam, society is breaking boundaries and ignoring convention. Following suit, these families are eschewing polite barriers and social taboos, with disastrous results. The Ice Storm of the title refers not only to a natural phenomenon but is a (rather heavy-handed) metaphor for a pervasive emotional temperament. The entire cast delivers textured, finely nuanced performances. This movie lingers in the psyche not only for the scope of the tragedy at its conclusion, but for Lee's often humorous and stingingly accurate assessment of pop culture. Based on Rick Moody's novel, this won the best-screenplay award at Cannes in 1997. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Customer Reviews:
A moving and fantastic film.......2007-09-12
This film is a must have for anyones collection. Wonderfully directed by Ang Lee this film depicts America in the 1970's and its sexual liberation. Sigourny Weaver and Kevin Kline play neighbours having an affair. Whilst their marriages are clearly on the ropes their children are mixed up too indulging in 'games' that are a little too grown up for them. The Ice Storm comes and with it an event that changes everyones lives and provides an opportunity to reflect on what they have all become. This is a film that tells a story in an adult way. It doesnt dumb it down to cater for the masses. Its moving, intense and above all powerful. Add this to your collection now!
Hidden gem.......2007-08-29
Brilliant! Is 'The Ice Storm' one of recent cinema's best kept secrets? Hardly anyone I know has seen this film - and yet I find it hard to think of a more beautiful and moving "American family drama." Is it better, even, than 'American Beauty'? Quite possibly. Simply put, this is a moving, perfectly told, superbly acted film. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Icicles.......2006-05-30
It's ironic that the warmest and most humane of movie directors, Ang Lee ("Sense and Sensibility," "Brokeback Mountain") is the director of the icy-cold (weather, of course and tone) and surgically precise "The Ice Storm."
Lee's innate humanity makes itself known in his handling of the characters here: he never judges, he never points a finger...he shows, he doesn't tell. It is a slippery slope though as the Rick Moody source material veers towards condemnation of this particularly randy and supposedly "swinging" group of mid 1970's couples and their children.
The wasp adults: a cold, cold, man-eating Sigourney Weaver as Janey Carver, a trying to be hip but lacking the wherewithal to pull it off, Joan Allen as Elena Hood and a "not-there" Jamey Sheridan and pseudo-hip but really just horny Kevin Kline as their respective husbands Jim Carver and Ben Hood...form the odd quartet of 30 somethings, probably used-to-be 60's hippies either in deed but most likely just in thought. Both couples have two children: also in various stages of rebellion and angst.
The signature scene in "The Ice Storm" is the Key Party: a ritual party in which the husbands put their keys in a bowl and at the party's close, the women pick a set of keys thereby picking the man with whom they will have sex that night.
Lee's camera swoops and swirls around all the guests as we catch snippets of conversations: affairs are concluded, gossip is exchanged, discrete and not so discrete flirting happens, much liquor is consumed and gallons of white lipstick is applied...Lee let's us in on all of it. And he does it without rancor, without an agenda and always with his patented warmth and love.
Arguably the best film of 1997 ("The Sweet Hereafter" is it's equal that year also), "The Ice Storm" is ultimately a tragedy of Classical Greek proportions: the world of this film is icy cold as are many of its inhabitants but Ang Lee's blazing humanity warms and soothes revealing an open wound of despair, indecision and loneliness.
Cold and stark.......2006-01-01
I, personally, was not alive in 1973. But the immensely underrated Ang Lee gives a glimpse into the 1970s suburbia when society went through a dramatic shift. A good thing? Don't be so sure. Lee strips away the illusions to reveal the loneliness and coldness in the wake of the sexual revolution.
The Carvers and the Hoods live next door to each other in an affluent suburban neighborhood. On the surface, all is well. But self-absorbed Ben Hood (Kevin Kline) is having an affair with the icy Janie Carver (Sigourney Weaver). Similarly, his precocious daughter Wendy (Christina Ricci) is "experimenting" with Janey's sons, the spacey Mikey (Elijah Wood). To make things worse, Ben's wife Elena (Joan Allen) is experiencing a bit of a crisis herself -- she suspects her husband is cheating on her, and she longs for the freedom and lack of care she had before her marriage.
After Ben finds Wendy and Mikey in a compromising position with a Nixon mask, and Elena clues in about Janey, the parents venture to what turns out to be a wife-swapping key party (the women take men's car keys out of a bowl and go home with covers New Canaan, their relationships will reach boiling point... and a tragedy will unfold.
I don't know how common these attitudes were in the 1970s, but undoubtedly they were a lot more common than people would like to remember. Such things as key parties seem almost alien now. Tobey Maguire's Paul Hood serves a vital function in this movie -- he's very normal, not into any sort of transitional weirdness (except pot smoking) and so can serve as an alter ego for the viewers.
Lee did a good job not just with the exquisite direction and the camerawork. He also doesn't overemphasize the sudden shifts in what was allowed and what wasn't -- in one scene, the adults calmly discuss watching "Deep Throat." As they speak, there's the nervous awareness that it was unacceptable for upper-middle-class suburbanite not long ago. They have drugs, free love, self-seeking... and they don't have the slightest clue what to do with it.
Lee overdoes it a little with the ice metaphors. The dead leaves and trees were a lot better. But he does do an expert job showing why loveless sex and distant families will only leave a person lonely. The families here talk a lot, but they don't speak. Even a simple question like "How's school?" or "What are you doing?" is enough to weird out the kids -- that's how far they are from their parents. Wood's only statement in the "making of" sums this up: "The parenting is just... it's all WHACKED!"
He tempers all this heavy stuff with humor, such as Janey coldly telling Ben that she doesn't need "another husband" prattling golf stories at her, or Mikey's comical confusion when Wendy offers to get intimate while wearing a Nixon mask. There are a lot of "seventies" things sprinkled through the movie, from the makeup to the toe socks (toe socks?), the TV shows, the hair, the clothes (Weaver's zippered jumpsuit, for example). But Lee doesn't really smack you in the face with it.
Kevin Kline is as good a serious actor as he is a comic one. When someone leers that he wishes people had brought their young daughters to the key party, Kline's expression is worth a thousand words. Weaver is always outstanding as a very cold woman who still has some affection for her kids; Allen is excellent as a woman whose feelings are bubbling past her icy exterior. Ricci mixes sophistication and vulnerability as the Nixon-obsessed Wendy. And Wood gives off a sort of ethereal feel as the spacey but sweet Mikey, a boy obsessed by molecules.
This is far from a feel-good movie, but it gives some undefined views into human nature, what is good for us and what isn't. Ang Lee took what could have been a disaster, and made it as cold and beautiful as an ice storm.
Charms, moves and treats the senses...an honest delight.......2005-07-22
A beautiful, existential melancholy malaise is created in a wonderfully realised 70s white middle class US suburban town where adolescent and middle aged "friends and neighbours" explore fulfilment within their daily lives amid a changing social and political landscape.
The great ensemble cast deliver a sharp script in a perfectly paced and superbly shot melancholy story. And as autumn drifts into winter their struggle for something pure, untainted and lasting reaches a tragic climax on the night of an almost ethereal "ice storm".
A charming and moving treat for the senses that lingers...
Amazon.co.uk Review
Asian American director Ang Lee sums up America in the early 1970s by focusing on the arrival of the sexual revolution in the 'burbs. Isolationism within a family, consumerism, and selfishness are personified by a cast that captures the self-obsession within two New England families. As the children struggle awkwardly with adolescence, their parents stumble through sexual experimentation. In the days of Watergate and Vietnam, society is breaking boundaries and ignoring convention. Following suit, these families are eschewing polite barriers and social taboos, with disastrous results. The Ice Storm of the title refers not only to a natural phenomenon but is a (rather heavy-handed) metaphor for a pervasive emotional temperament. The entire cast delivers textured, finely nuanced performances. This movie lingers in the psyche not only for the scope of the tragedy at its conclusion, but for Lee's often humorous and stingingly accurate assessment of pop culture. Based on Rick Moody's novel, this won the best-screenplay award at Cannes in 1997. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Customer Reviews:
A moving and fantastic film.......2007-09-12
This film is a must have for anyones collection. Wonderfully directed by Ang Lee this film depicts America in the 1970's and its sexual liberation. Sigourny Weaver and Kevin Kline play neighbours having an affair. Whilst their marriages are clearly on the ropes their children are mixed up too indulging in 'games' that are a little too grown up for them. The Ice Storm comes and with it an event that changes everyones lives and provides an opportunity to reflect on what they have all become. This is a film that tells a story in an adult way. It doesnt dumb it down to cater for the masses. Its moving, intense and above all powerful. Add this to your collection now!
Hidden gem.......2007-08-29
Brilliant! Is 'The Ice Storm' one of recent cinema's best kept secrets? Hardly anyone I know has seen this film - and yet I find it hard to think of a more beautiful and moving "American family drama." Is it better, even, than 'American Beauty'? Quite possibly. Simply put, this is a moving, perfectly told, superbly acted film. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Icicles.......2006-05-30
It's ironic that the warmest and most humane of movie directors, Ang Lee ("Sense and Sensibility," "Brokeback Mountain") is the director of the icy-cold (weather, of course and tone) and surgically precise "The Ice Storm."
Lee's innate humanity makes itself known in his handling of the characters here: he never judges, he never points a finger...he shows, he doesn't tell. It is a slippery slope though as the Rick Moody source material veers towards condemnation of this particularly randy and supposedly "swinging" group of mid 1970's couples and their children.
The wasp adults: a cold, cold, man-eating Sigourney Weaver as Janey Carver, a trying to be hip but lacking the wherewithal to pull it off, Joan Allen as Elena Hood and a "not-there" Jamey Sheridan and pseudo-hip but really just horny Kevin Kline as their respective husbands Jim Carver and Ben Hood...form the odd quartet of 30 somethings, probably used-to-be 60's hippies either in deed but most likely just in thought. Both couples have two children: also in various stages of rebellion and angst.
The signature scene in "The Ice Storm" is the Key Party: a ritual party in which the husbands put their keys in a bowl and at the party's close, the women pick a set of keys thereby picking the man with whom they will have sex that night.
Lee's camera swoops and swirls around all the guests as we catch snippets of conversations: affairs are concluded, gossip is exchanged, discrete and not so discrete flirting happens, much liquor is consumed and gallons of white lipstick is applied...Lee let's us in on all of it. And he does it without rancor, without an agenda and always with his patented warmth and love.
Arguably the best film of 1997 ("The Sweet Hereafter" is it's equal that year also), "The Ice Storm" is ultimately a tragedy of Classical Greek proportions: the world of this film is icy cold as are many of its inhabitants but Ang Lee's blazing humanity warms and soothes revealing an open wound of despair, indecision and loneliness.
Cold and stark.......2006-01-01
I, personally, was not alive in 1973. But the immensely underrated Ang Lee gives a glimpse into the 1970s suburbia when society went through a dramatic shift. A good thing? Don't be so sure. Lee strips away the illusions to reveal the loneliness and coldness in the wake of the sexual revolution.
The Carvers and the Hoods live next door to each other in an affluent suburban neighborhood. On the surface, all is well. But self-absorbed Ben Hood (Kevin Kline) is having an affair with the icy Janie Carver (Sigourney Weaver). Similarly, his precocious daughter Wendy (Christina Ricci) is "experimenting" with Janey's sons, the spacey Mikey (Elijah Wood). To make things worse, Ben's wife Elena (Joan Allen) is experiencing a bit of a crisis herself -- she suspects her husband is cheating on her, and she longs for the freedom and lack of care she had before her marriage.
After Ben finds Wendy and Mikey in a compromising position with a Nixon mask, and Elena clues in about Janey, the parents venture to what turns out to be a wife-swapping key party (the women take men's car keys out of a bowl and go home with covers New Canaan, their relationships will reach boiling point... and a tragedy will unfold.
I don't know how common these attitudes were in the 1970s, but undoubtedly they were a lot more common than people would like to remember. Such things as key parties seem almost alien now. Tobey Maguire's Paul Hood serves a vital function in this movie -- he's very normal, not into any sort of transitional weirdness (except pot smoking) and so can serve as an alter ego for the viewers.
Lee did a good job not just with the exquisite direction and the camerawork. He also doesn't overemphasize the sudden shifts in what was allowed and what wasn't -- in one scene, the adults calmly discuss watching "Deep Throat." As they speak, there's the nervous awareness that it was unacceptable for upper-middle-class suburbanite not long ago. They have drugs, free love, self-seeking... and they don't have the slightest clue what to do with it.
Lee overdoes it a little with the ice metaphors. The dead leaves and trees were a lot better. But he does do an expert job showing why loveless sex and distant families will only leave a person lonely. The families here talk a lot, but they don't speak. Even a simple question like "How's school?" or "What are you doing?" is enough to weird out the kids -- that's how far they are from their parents. Wood's only statement in the "making of" sums this up: "The parenting is just... it's all WHACKED!"
He tempers all this heavy stuff with humor, such as Janey coldly telling Ben that she doesn't need "another husband" prattling golf stories at her, or Mikey's comical confusion when Wendy offers to get intimate while wearing a Nixon mask. There are a lot of "seventies" things sprinkled through the movie, from the makeup to the toe socks (toe socks?), the TV shows, the hair, the clothes (Weaver's zippered jumpsuit, for example). But Lee doesn't really smack you in the face with it.
Kevin Kline is as good a serious actor as he is a comic one. When someone leers that he wishes people had brought their young daughters to the key party, Kline's expression is worth a thousand words. Weaver is always outstanding as a very cold woman who still has some affection for her kids; Allen is excellent as a woman whose feelings are bubbling past her icy exterior. Ricci mixes sophistication and vulnerability as the Nixon-obsessed Wendy. And Wood gives off a sort of ethereal feel as the spacey but sweet Mikey, a boy obsessed by molecules.
This is far from a feel-good movie, but it gives some undefined views into human nature, what is good for us and what isn't. Ang Lee took what could have been a disaster, and made it as cold and beautiful as an ice storm.
Charms, moves and treats the senses...an honest delight.......2005-07-22
A beautiful, existential melancholy malaise is created in a wonderfully realised 70s white middle class US suburban town where adolescent and middle aged "friends and neighbours" explore fulfilment within their daily lives amid a changing social and political landscape.
The great ensemble cast deliver a sharp script in a perfectly paced and superbly shot melancholy story. And as autumn drifts into winter their struggle for something pure, untainted and lasting reaches a tragic climax on the night of an almost ethereal "ice storm".
A charming and moving treat for the senses that lingers...
Amazon.co.uk Review
Asian American director Ang Lee sums up America in the early 1970s by focusing on the arrival of the sexual revolution in the 'burbs. Isolationism within a family, consumerism, and selfishness are personified by a cast that captures the self-obsession within two New England families. As the children struggle awkwardly with adolescence, their parents stumble through sexual experimentation. In the days of Watergate and Vietnam, society is breaking boundaries and ignoring convention. Following suit, these families are eschewing polite barriers and social taboos, with disastrous results. The Ice Storm of the title refers not only to a natural phenomenon but is a (rather heavy-handed) metaphor for a pervasive emotional temperament. The entire cast delivers textured, finely nuanced performances. This movie lingers in the psyche not only for the scope of the tragedy at its conclusion, but for Lee's often humorous and stingingly accurate assessment of pop culture. Based on Rick Moody's novel, this won the best-screenplay award at Cannes in 1997. --Rochelle O'Gorman
Customer Reviews:
A moving and fantastic film.......2007-09-12
This film is a must have for anyones collection. Wonderfully directed by Ang Lee this film depicts America in the 1970's and its sexual liberation. Sigourny Weaver and Kevin Kline play neighbours having an affair. Whilst their marriages are clearly on the ropes their children are mixed up too indulging in 'games' that are a little too grown up for them. The Ice Storm comes and with it an event that changes everyones lives and provides an opportunity to reflect on what they have all become. This is a film that tells a story in an adult way. It doesnt dumb it down to cater for the masses. Its moving, intense and above all powerful. Add this to your collection now!
Hidden gem.......2007-08-29
Brilliant! Is 'The Ice Storm' one of recent cinema's best kept secrets? Hardly anyone I know has seen this film - and yet I find it hard to think of a more beautiful and moving "American family drama." Is it better, even, than 'American Beauty'? Quite possibly. Simply put, this is a moving, perfectly told, superbly acted film. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Icicles.......2006-05-30
It's ironic that the warmest and most humane of movie directors, Ang Lee ("Sense and Sensibility," "Brokeback Mountain") is the director of the icy-cold (weather, of course and tone) and surgically precise "The Ice Storm."
Lee's innate humanity makes itself known in his handling of the characters here: he never judges, he never points a finger...he shows, he doesn't tell. It is a slippery slope though as the Rick Moody source material veers towards condemnation of this particularly randy and supposedly "swinging" group of mid 1970's couples and their children.
The wasp adults: a cold, cold, man-eating Sigourney Weaver as Janey Carver, a trying to be hip but lacking the wherewithal to pull it off, Joan Allen as Elena Hood and a "not-there" Jamey Sheridan and pseudo-hip but really just horny Kevin Kline as their respective husbands Jim Carver and Ben Hood...form the odd quartet of 30 somethings, probably used-to-be 60's hippies either in deed but most likely just in thought. Both couples have two children: also in various stages of rebellion and angst.
The signature scene in "The Ice Storm" is the Key Party: a ritual party in which the husbands put their keys in a bowl and at the party's close, the women pick a set of keys thereby picking the man with whom they will have sex that night.
Lee's camera swoops and swirls around all the guests as we catch snippets of conversations: affairs are concluded, gossip is exchanged, discrete and not so discrete flirting happens, much liquor is consumed and gallons of white lipstick is applied...Lee let's us in on all of it. And he does it without rancor, without an agenda and always with his patented warmth and love.
Arguably the best film of 1997 ("The Sweet Hereafter" is it's equal that year also), "The Ice Storm" is ultimately a tragedy of Classical Greek proportions: the world of this film is icy cold as are many of its inhabitants but Ang Lee's blazing humanity warms and soothes revealing an open wound of despair, indecision and loneliness.
Cold and stark.......2006-01-01
I, personally, was not alive in 1973. But the immensely underrated Ang Lee gives a glimpse into the 1970s suburbia when society went through a dramatic shift. A good thing? Don't be so sure. Lee strips away the illusions to reveal the loneliness and coldness in the wake of the sexual revolution.
The Carvers and the Hoods live next door to each other in an affluent suburban neighborhood. On the surface, all is well. But self-absorbed Ben Hood (Kevin Kline) is having an affair with the icy Janie Carver (Sigourney Weaver). Similarly, his precocious daughter Wendy (Christina Ricci) is "experimenting" with Janey's sons, the spacey Mikey (Elijah Wood). To make things worse, Ben's wife Elena (Joan Allen) is experiencing a bit of a crisis herself -- she suspects her husband is cheating on her, and she longs for the freedom and lack of care she had before her marriage.
After Ben finds Wendy and Mikey in a compromising position with a Nixon mask, and Elena clues in about Janey, the parents venture to what turns out to be a wife-swapping key party (the women take men's car keys out of a bowl and go home with covers New Canaan, their relationships will reach boiling point... and a tragedy will unfold.
I don't know how common these attitudes were in the 1970s, but undoubtedly they were a lot more common than people would like to remember. Such things as key parties seem almost alien now. Tobey Maguire's Paul Hood serves a vital function in this movie -- he's very normal, not into any sort of transitional weirdness (except pot smoking) and so can serve as an alter ego for the viewers.
Lee did a good job not just with the exquisite direction and the camerawork. He also doesn't overemphasize the sudden shifts in what was allowed and what wasn't -- in one scene, the adults calmly discuss watching "Deep Throat." As they speak, there's the nervous awareness that it was unacceptable for upper-middle-class suburbanite not long ago. They have drugs, free love, self-seeking... and they don't have the slightest clue what to do with it.
Lee overdoes it a little with the ice metaphors. The dead leaves and trees were a lot better. But he does do an expert job showing why loveless sex and distant families will only leave a person lonely. The families here talk a lot, but they don't speak. Even a simple question like "How's school?" or "What are you doing?" is enough to weird out the kids -- that's how far they are from their parents. Wood's only statement in the "making of" sums this up: "The parenting is just... it's all WHACKED!"
He tempers all this heavy stuff with humor, such as Janey coldly telling Ben that she doesn't need "another husband" prattling golf stories at her, or Mikey's comical confusion when Wendy offers to get intimate while wearing a Nixon mask. There are a lot of "seventies" things sprinkled through the movie, from the makeup to the toe socks (toe socks?), the TV shows, the hair, the clothes (Weaver's zippered jumpsuit, for example). But Lee doesn't really smack you in the face with it.
Kevin Kline is as good a serious actor as he is a comic one. When someone leers that he wishes people had brought their young daughters to the key party, Kline's expression is worth a thousand words. Weaver is always outstanding as a very cold woman who still has some affection for her kids; Allen is excellent as a woman whose feelings are bubbling past her icy exterior. Ricci mixes sophistication and vulnerability as the Nixon-obsessed Wendy. And Wood gives off a sort of ethereal feel as the spacey but sweet Mikey, a boy obsessed by molecules.
This is far from a feel-good movie, but it gives some undefined views into human nature, what is good for us and what isn't. Ang Lee took what could have been a disaster, and made it as cold and beautiful as an ice storm.
Charms, moves and treats the senses...an honest delight.......2005-07-22
A beautiful, existential melancholy malaise is created in a wonderfully realised 70s white middle class US suburban town where adolescent and middle aged "friends and neighbours" explore fulfilment within their daily lives amid a changing social and political landscape.
The great ensemble cast deliver a sharp script in a perfectly paced and superbly shot melancholy story. And as autumn drifts into winter their struggle for something pure, untainted and lasting reaches a tragic climax on the night of an almost ethereal "ice storm".
A charming and moving treat for the senses that lingers...
UK DVD:
- The Louis Malle Collection - Vol. 1
- The Man Who Cried [2000]
- The Piano (Special Edition)
- The Singing Detective [1986]
- The X Files Movie [1998]
- Tideland [2005]
- Traffic [2001]
- Tsotsi [2006]
- Under The Greenwood Tree
- Upstairs Downstairs - The Complete First Series
UK DVD List
UK DVD
![The Ice Storm [1998]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21QGQEVY7TL.jpg)
All Drama
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Drama
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Categories
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DVD
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Video
![Wonder Boys [2000]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00005NB0B.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![Ride With The Devil [1999]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00004T8VQ.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![The Sweet Hereafter [1997]](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000059YUN.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
![The Ice Storm [1998]](http://www.bill88.com/buy.gif)
![The Ice Storm [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21WGYT6KGRL.jpg)
![The Ice Storm [1998]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21zz%2BFAGU5L.jpg)
![The Ice Storm [1998]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21NDD02462L.jpg)
![The Ice Storm [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC)](http://www.germanelectronics88.com/noimage.gif)
