The Ice Storm (1997)

Touches You

Powerful

People are voting emotionally.

Blistering performances.

First of all, this movie is based on a book written by Rick Moody, who was an raised in an upper middle class Connecticut suburb in the 70s. I watched the movie first and read the book after, and for me both are masterpieces.He (Rick Moody) wrote a fictional story, but we can see and feel that he is talking about the environment where he grew up and the the book depicts the hypocrisies and contradictions of society at the time, who was very traditional and conventional on the outside (men are breadwinners, women are attractive housewives, everybody celebrate thanksgiving, everybody aims to be part of the corporate world), but on the inside, the adults are insecure and irrational just like their children, despite their respectable looks and sophisticated language.The beauty of the film, is that the director Ang Lee invested a lot on the aesthetic factor ,casting perfect actors and making the audience nostalgic for a time when most of us were not even born. There are plenty of cultural references of topics that most generations today are not even aware of(like Richard Nixon, Poseidon Adventure, Jonathan Livingston Seagull).The movie was hardly watched because it was release together with Titanic, so bad timing contributed to the obscurity of " the ice storm"The story is very intense. Two prosperous families who are the typical role models for the American Dream are having a typical thanksgiving weekend. What all members have in common is that they are all horny, and are trying to have some sex (adultery for the adults, first experienced for the youth) and it appears that getting some of it is not making them any happier. They are normally miserable and frustrated despite their successes in bed, in their studies and professions.There is a very moving scene in the end when a wife gives some affection to her sobbing husband , and then we realize that this is the missing element in their lives. Despite their constant desire for more sex, they don't realize that they were actually were deprived of love.When I watch this movie, it always makes me feel like hugging the people I love.

Would Ang Lee's The Ice Storm be as effective in a bright summer's day? I think not. The opening has a ghostly, near empty train diligently chugging its way through the icy winter landscape, as a sort of futile attempt to bat back the elements that buffet these suburban families. It shines its headlights out in vain. Other vehicles, including the numerous cars parked on the street too fall to this chilling weather. Would the characters feels as frozen and trapped if it was not below and zero, thus forcing them to stay indoors to keep warm and confront the utter banality of their middle class lives. The answer is no. Ang Lee has composed a quiet, frozen little picture of this town, and how it has rendered its inhabitants frustrated and static. We do not ever learn of the setting's name; it could be anywhere in 70s America. The production design and costuming has a particularly dulling effect. It feels as if even in the cold weather they are trying to maintain stylish through fashion and decor...these bright colours might pop in the sunlight but there is none of that around, and thus staring endlessly at the same wardrobe and kitchen set they begin to realise the complete facile nature of their lives. Some have long resigned to it - see the long line of gray trenchcoats congregating at the train station for another day of 9-5. So what do they do but resort to a wide range of wild vices, the usual escape from the clean, uncluttered and nuclear image of the American dream. Sex in the abundant theme here. A key swap party is one of those things that sound spicy and exciting in theory but cannot suddenly be thrust into a community as miserable and anxious as this one and bring about a change or epiphany. Their wide eyes and fake smiles persist agonisingly up until the actual choosing of the keys, where their wild personas begin to crack and we can almost hear their brains churning and thinking "So this is really happening then...". The film's best moment is that one couple that 'accidentally' chooses themselves, and feigns a small fuss and quickly scurries away before anyone can object - none of these adults can readily and openly admit that they are not nearly as emotionally stable enough for this kind of game, so this couple sees its chance and runs with it. Another brilliant moment is shortly before that, where a plumper woman fishes out a set of keys and waits a little longer for someone to confess or to bite. It manages to hit that tender note of being both a little funny and a little sad at the same time. What was wild and adventurous in their minds has warped into something stifling and uncomfortable and it takes a moment for them to realise it. No doubt that no couple's affair that night lived up to what they had been promised. Opposing them of course we have the kids who are ironically, the more mature ones about their sexuality. This theme is a little on the nose. We can see that the adults are pretending to be risqué but really rigidly uncompromising without having Ricci parade her body around to any boy who cares to look/feel. Lee somewhat tries to get away with this by masking it with the sexual curiosity of young children, but his objective is pretty clear. He pushes these scenes together for this purpose; Janey chastises the kids for being so sexually explicit and open, warning "our bodies betray us" and yet later she is in bed with someone that satisfies her on a purely physical level (and perhaps not even that by the film's end). Ben does the same when he discovers them in the basement, deflecting his own infidelities by telling off her daughter for being so sexually frank. Meanwhile Tobey Maguire is the third counterpoint - the dopey, naive freshman who has a girl's mouth deposited right onto his crotch, but knows better than to take advantage. How long before he too is frustrated and bound by the confines of the small town? I cannot avoid a mention of Revolutionary Road. Yates wrote about a different time period, but the feelings are all the same. And yet that story of the Wheelers feels more developed, more natural. Their ambition to flee the quaint little suburban setting is the actual thing that destroys them, and it is tragic in the way they have blinded themselves and yearned for things far, far away whilst ignoring the material right in front of them. In The Ice Storm the characters are also pretending. But their demise doesn't come from within, from their own mistakes and self-delusions. It comes from the titular phenomenon itself, as Mikey is struck down by the electrical wires. This is the cheapest way to invoke tragedy, to pick the most innocent character of them all and to kill him off arbitrarily. In the end they are sobbing, but because it has occurred as a freak accident removed from their actions it feels needlessly cruel rather than truly tragic. The punishment is not earned.

It is not a pretty picture, but this film really captures something essential about life in the prosperous Connecticut suburbs in the 1970s. The details are spot on (with the exception of a couple of ludicrous sweaters), and I felt transported to that time and place. Here we have a couple of families that appear to have it all, yet below the surface there are big cracks starting to open. Each member of the Hood family gets to be a part of the narrative. There is infidelity, sexual exploration, a fair amount of drinking, and what looks like budding insanity. Things come to a tragic climax over Thanksgiving weekend and a nasty ice storm. The film is enlivened by many wonderful shots and subtle, sardonic humor. Who could forget the "key party" (not a common occurrence, althou the movie acts like it was - lol!) or the Nixon mask scene?

1973, suburban Connecticut: middle class families experimenting with casual sex, drink, etc., find their lives out of control.Film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both gave the film Two Thumbs Up, with Gene Siskel calling it the best film of the year, and Roger Ebert calling it Ang Lee's best film yet. Siskel was probably overstating things, while Ebert was probably right. Even now (2015), this remains a largely overlooked film despite Lee's direction and the many actors who were big or have since become bigger.Personally, I really liked the comic book (Fantastic Four) angle, and wish this had played a bigger role. But I will take what I can get and I think it was well done.