5/5 It's time to warm up to this chilly film...
  by Andrew Ellington (Mulholland Drive)
A lot of people I know compare this film to `American Beauty', and I totally understand why. Both films explore suburban family life in a way that is honest and flawed and completely exploitive without ever appearing overdone or, well, exploitive. I completely adore both films, but while `American Beauty' excels in really capturing the insecurities and eventual demise of the middle-aged man, `The Ice Storm' takes a different route (albeit similar circumstances) in that it exposes the moral breakdown of the average family.

Both films involve a family unit, complete with children, and both films expose a marriage on the rocks (complete with an affair) as well as childish rebellion and self discovery on both sides of the spectrum, but to be `The Ice Storm' works a little more in that it actually feels invested in every character.

Outside of Spacey, `American Beauty' loses some footing.

Ben and Elena Hood are seemingly happy parents with a daughter at home and a son off in school, but when their son Paul comes home for a visit they begin to visibly unravel. Both Paul and his sister Wendy are beginning to explore their own individuality, which as per usual involves some sort of distorted intimacy, and this coincides with their parents beginning to acknowledge their own inadequacies. Ben has been fooling around with Janey Carver, the mother of Mikey, Wendy's current flame. Elena is most likely privy to the affair, even if she refuses to admit it to herself, but what is even more pertinent is that the children here all know and understand far more than the parents want to believe.

What is so beautiful (tragically so) about `The Ice Storm' is that it exposes the messes we parents make while we falsely believe that our children are too young to understand all that they are witnessing.

Sigourney Weaver's character Janey is the perfect example of this very idea.

Across the board the film is filled with stellar performances that really ignite on contact. Kevin Kline has rarely been better (and when you consider that he also starred in the uproarious `In & Out' this same year you really have to hand it to him) and Joan Allen is all sorts of stellar as Elena, giving her a true sense of uninformed (or should I say unacknowledged) dread. Tobey Maguire, Adam Hann-Byrd, Christina Ricci (OMG amazing here), Elijah Wood and Katie Holmes all astound in their roles (some great child acting here); but it is one name that resounds loudest and that is Sigourney Weaver. Her understanding of the unaccepted flaws of Janey is just marvelous. That final scene, after the party, alone in the house and then suddenly aware of the truth; it's just a heart-stopper.

In the end I must say that `The Ice Storm' is one of the most sublimely done films on family tension I've ever seen, exposing the heart of human frailty without coming across as preachy, contrived or clichéd. It is honest, dark and surprisingly inspired, and the final moments (where eyes are opened for the very first time) add a layer of hope that is much needed in the world we live in today.

Bravo.

1/5 Historically inaccurate
  by M. Bender (Brooklyn, NY USA)
I used to love this movie. I think all of the acting is excellent, and that it perfectly portrays the suburban ennui of Connecticut in the 1970s that, albeit in a different form, still exists to this day. My complaint is this: I searched for "weather in New Canaan, Connecticut, November 23, 1973" in Wolfram Alpha recently (Novemebr 23 being the date of the titular ice storm) and the result I got was -- are you ready for this? -- "temperature average: 48 °F, conditions: fog, overcast, cloudy, partly cloudy, few clouds, clear." That, my friends, is a far cry from an ice storm. It is sad to see a movie go so far in recreating a historical period -- costumes, Watergate hearings, houses, even waterbeds -- and get this one crucial piece so very wrong. For shame, Rick Moody and Ang Lee!

3/5 Another dysfunctional suburban family
  by R. Swanson (New Mexico)
I have loved every Ang Lee film I've seen...Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger, Brokeback Mountain and Lust,Caution. So I had high expectations for this, especially with the stellar cast.

I kept thinking I'd seen the film before---it reminded me a lot of Revolutionary Road, another look at morally bankrupt suburban Connecticut families...even to the point of the hasty, clumsy sex in the car between the two neighbors. That was directed by Sam Mendes, another good director from another culture. One wonders what fascination this bit of Americana holds for these foreigners...Are they so eager to see the dark side of our culture?

The first time I saw a film about the underside of the affluent white suburbs was back in the 60's I think, with Robert Redford's brilliant film, Ordinary People, starring Mary Tyler Moore and I think Timothy Hutton. That was a real breakthrough in showing how things weren't as pretty as they seemed on the surface. But gee, that was a long time ago...and I think we've all gotten the message. I don't know when the novel from which the book was taken was written...perhaps it had relevance at that time. But to me, this is just rehashing the same old ideas and I don't see that Lee adds anything to our understanding about the scene at all. Lot of stupid sex among the adults and the kids, lots of alcohol and drugs and talk about the meaninglessness of life, or whatever was in that comic book that Toby McGuire kept reading. Boring, pretentious stuff.

The actors are all very good and they the best with the material.
It is better than Revolutionary Road which I really hated...at least these characters have some redeeming values.

5/5 Good
  by Orion C.L.Heart
Shiping was sooner than posted. product was as promised and in unopend and in retail packaging condition

5/5 Classic
  by William R. Nicholas (Mahwah, NJ USA)
The old cleche the book is better than the film is usually true. A writer can convey an idea in a word, page or chapter. A film maker, somtimes, only has a shot.

But not ture for Ice Storm. I both read and viewed. The elaborations in Moody's book are on political events, decorating styles, and small details of the early 70s. Toe socks. Metal ice trays.

Director Ang Lee works these into each shot of his 1997 film, about two, next door familes, Thanksgiving weekend, 1973. Coouples are having affairs and testing group sex. Everything held true was false. They were lied to about Vietnam and were embroiled in Watergate. The country they knew, gone. Their early teen kids are expermenting with sex and drugs.

In the book, Ben Hood, the father, spanks his kid with a hairbrush. Is unrepentant about his afairs. There is viscousness. In the movie, Kevin Klien's Ben is flawed too--but is gentle, uncertian, ashamed of his indiscretions, trying but failing to find his way home. Klien is too likeable and cerebral an actor to play Hood as a cad.

The same goes for Hood's wife, Elaina. When, in the book, she catches her daugter Wendy in bed with the neighbors kid, she first tries to spank her and pulls hair when the kid resists. On screen, Joan Allen gives a befuddlled look, tells Wendy to dress, and shuts the door. She does not know what to do. But at least she thinks before acting.

Book to film, the premice changes. Rick Moody is more interested in hypocrocy and cruelity, how families destory each other. Lee sees the damage a result of uncertianty, secrets, people unable to deal effectively with their own emptiness.

I perfer the film. The characters are complex, and you can empathize with them more. You may not like what they do, but you can see something in them basically decent.

Lee's directing is full of nuance, pockets of silence, and subtext. It unfolds slow as a New Haven Winter day. If you are going to make a film about 1973, why not use 1973 pacing and subtlety.


If more 2009 films were made like this, paying twelve bucks for a movie would be a lot easier to swollow.