Directed by:
Ang LeeScreenplay:
James SchamusCinematography:
Frederick ElmesComposer:
Mychael DannaCast:
Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Henry Czerny, David Krumholtz, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Jamey Sheridan, Elijah Wood, Sigourney Weaver, Adam Hann-Byrd (more)Plots(1)
It is Thanksgiving, 1973, and the Carvers and the Hoods are two prototypical suburban families seemingly living the good life in New Canaan, Connecticut. Behind their New Age philosophies and polyester fashions, however, lies deep discontent. One husband carries on an unsatisfying affair with the other family's wife, while his teenage daughter experiments sexually with both of the neighbor's boys. When a winter storm descends upon their upper middle class neighborhood, buried resentments bubble over, leading to a tragedy neither family will ever forget. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (7)
It's a film that stands on an incredibly solid foundation of acting, with not a single actor being poorly chosen and everyone doing what is needed for each scene. Above all, the young actors are surprising and do a really great job. Kevin Kline should also have been given more space with good movies.
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The actress is quite convincing, the chemistry between the man and woman is average, but it’s very good between the husband and wife, albeit not completely believable. Ang Lee portrays the problem of adolescence very sensitively and many scenes are heart-wrenching. The intimacy is immense. The adult world is not as excellent and there are holes in the story, especially the malfunctioning third weel in the form of Sigourney Weaver, whose character is not strong or distinctive enough. But it is definitely worth watching. Ang Lee is a man of many visions and he was close to fulfilling one here.
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Why didn't someone explain to Danna that he was not composing music for a Chinese historical film, but for an American psychological film? Well, not actually very psychological…and not at all as chilling as the metaphors that it uses (family members are separated by sheets of ice and their relationships slowly approach the freezing point). If life wears you down a bit sometimes, watching The Ice Storm doesn’t. Though it outwardly addresses major issues, it’s banal and suffers from literalism (what do you call a party that’s a key element of the narrative? A key party!). Ang Lee takes care to ensure that every shot makes us aware that the story is set in a period when the United States had definitively lost its innocence, but with the exception of the reference to Deep Throat and the bizarre “Fuck Nixon” scene (or whatever you want to call it), I saw no reason why the whole relationship drama couldn’t have been set a decade earlier or later. The actors perform according to expectations, but the behaviour of their characters doesn’t make a lot of sense and is rather lacking in authenticity and uncalculated emotion. Now I would like to cleanse my palate with some Altman-style vitriol (Short Cuts, perhaps?). 60%
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Ang Lee has made a superb relationship drama that abounds with a host of excellently written and acted characters – the sexually emboldened but also cold and empty Christina Ricci, the helpless and frustrated Tobey Maguire, the calculating but also extremely fragile Sigourney Weaver, and the love- and emotion-hungry Joan Allen. Overall, there is nothing to fault in the choice of actors, and when you add Ang Lee's sensitive yet matter-of-fact direction, you get a film that is profound, sad, and beautiful all at the same time.
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I liked these two weirdly connected families a lot. The drama was palpable, Tobey Maguire wasn’t spitting cobwebs everywhere (which was a good thing), Christina Ricci was like Wednesday again (which was even better), and I savored all the quiet desperation.
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