The Ice Storm (1997) Fox Searchlight/Drama RT: 114 minutes Rated R (language, strong sexual content some involving teens, teen drug and alcohol use, thematic elements) Director: Ang Lee Screenplay: James Schamus Music: Mychael Danna Cinematography: Frederick Elmes Release date: October 17, 1997 (US) Cast: Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Jamey Sheridan, Sigourney Weaver, Christina Ricci, Tobey Maguire, Elijah Wood, Adam Hann-Byrd, David Krumholtz, Katie Holmes, Henry Czerny, Michael Cumpsty, Kate Burton, Allison Janney, Glenn Fitzgerald, Larry Pine. Box Office: $8M (US)
Rating: ****
Despite the title, The Ice Storm is not a disaster movie about some freakish weather occurrence that places the entire world in a deep freeze. Although one does occur, the title is a metaphor. It also refers to the emotional freeze in which several characters exist in Ang Lee’s (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) intense drama set over the course of an eventful Thanksgiving holiday in 1973. It’s a dark story dealing with the decline of family relationships in the face of changing times. As the physical ice storm is about to hit, so is the huge emotional one that’s been brewing for some time.
The drama centers on two families living in the affluent Connecticut suburb of New Canaan and their inability to communicate with each other. The adults are self-absorbed and clueless about what their children are up to. Ben Hood (Kline, Grand Canyon) and his wife Elena (Allen, Nixon) don’t speak. He’s dissatisfied with his entire life and she’s bored with her empty suburban existence. While Elena seeks emotional fulfillment through self-help books and attempting to shoplift from the local pharmacy, Ben is having an affair with their neighbor Janey Carver (Weaver, Aliens). Their son Paul (Maguire, Spider-Man) attends a private boarding school where he is treated as a social outcast. His sister Wendy (Ricci, Black Snake Moan), whose favorite pastimes are watching the Watergate hearings on TV and experimenting with sex, is sullen and moody.
Janey’s husband Jim (Sheridan, Whispers in the Dark) is frequently away on business and she prefers it that way. It gives her the opportunity to sleep with other men. This couple is so self-absorbed they don’t see that both of their sons are disturbed. Younger son Sandy (Byrd, Halloween H20) is obsessed with violence; Mikey (Wood, the LOTR trilogy) is clearly psychotic. While the adults attend dinner parties making small talk about current events (e.g. Watergate, swinging and the movie Deep Throat), the children mimic the behavior of the adults around them by experimenting with drugs, alcohol and sex. Wendy fools around with Mikey even though she doesn’t particularly like him. Paul has the hots for a pseudo-intellectual classmate Libbets Casey (Holmes, pre-Dawson’s Creek) who continually brushes him off.
As the weather outside increases in intensity, so do everybody’s emotions. The emotional grudge match between the Hoods will come to a head at a wife-swapping party where Elena decides to get even with Ben for his infidelity. Paul heads off to New York for an evening with the object of his desire. Of course, it doesn’t go down like he hopes it will. Wendy heads to the Carvers where she sets her sights on Sandy in his older brother’s absence. Mikey’s out playing in the ice storm. It all leads to a terrible tragedy that will melt the remnants of the characters’ emotional ice.
I’d like to talk more about the metaphoric value of the title if I may. One of the key aspects of The Ice Storm is the characters’ inability to communicate with each other in any meaningful way. They speak without really saying anything, often leaving sentences unfinished. Nobody listens to what’s being said; conversations are frequently awkward. Ben tries to have a talk with Paul about sex, but it ends up making no sense with him explaining the logistics of masturbation. After he catches Wendy fooling around with Mikey in the Carvers’ basement, he sternly lectures her about retaining her virginity and Mikey not being the right guy. Then he tenderly carries her home so her feet won’t get cold in the freezing rain on the ground. Janey will never win any Mother of the Year awards. When she scolds Wendy for accosting Sandy in the bathroom, she speaks too cryptically to get her point across. When Jim returns home from a business trip, Mikey doesn’t even realize he was gone. A family therapist would make a fortune off these people.
The acting in The Ice Storm is positively brilliant with each cast member delivering a strong performance. Kline, who’s always good anyway, is perfectly cast as the head of the Hood clan. In true Father Knows Best form, he tries to maintain the picture perfect happy family façade even though they’re anything but. Allen’s performance is one of quiet anger and soul-crushing boredom. While looking for meaning in her mundane life, she somehow manages to repress the resentment she feels towards her husband after confirming what she’s suspected for some time. Weaver is terrific as ice-cold Janey who’s only interested in a physical relationship; she has no interest in Ben’s feelings and thoughts. She makes this clear when he persists in making post-coital small talk about his golf game.
Ricci, in her first mature role, makes an indelible impression as a sexually curious, emotionally immature teen. She understands the physical components of sex without understanding the emotional part. In one scene, she puts on a Richard Nixon mask and tells Mikey what she will and won’t do during one of their fool-around sessions. In concealing her face, we have no idea what if anything she’s feeling. By keeping their clothes mostly on, it shows they’re mimicking as opposed to engaging in sex. Combined, it affirms that sex is just a game to them. Wood does exceptional work as a teen boy who sees the world around him differently than everybody else. He’s obsessed with things like molecules and theoretical space. How does nobody see he’s not right in the head? Maguire makes a solid debut as Paul, also the narrator of this story. He makes several abstract references to the Fantastic Four, drawing a parallel between their family unit and his own.
Everything about The Ice Storm is letter perfect and that’s no exaggeration. It’s not often that a movie achieves this level of perfection. It’s one of the most overlooked, underappreciated movies of the 90s. I still can’t believe it didn’t receive a single Oscar nomination that year. It’s such a wonderful, exquisite film.
The cinematography by Frederick Elmes is beautiful. He uses the frozen landscape as a metaphor for the internal lives of the characters. They get no joy from their activities; they’re just going through the motions. Take the wife-swapping party. The sexual revolution has made its way to their quiet, wooded suburb; the adults seem eager to participate in things like smoking reefer with their martinis and holding “key parties”. That’s where a woman sleeps with the man whose car keys she randomly selects from a bowl. It’s supposed to be fun, but it’s not in this case. What we’re actually seeing is a bunch of unhappy people looking for something to fill the void in their lives. Sadly, their desire to end the ennui will have tragic results. The score by Mychael Danna is very good. He makes especially excellent use of chimes; they sound like icicles clicking against one another as they hang from the dead branches of trees. The closing song “I Can’t Read” by David Bowie is in perfect synch with the bleak tone of the movie.
I won’t lie; The Ice Storm is not a feel-good movie. Depressing and serious, it’s comparable to Bergman. The characters are complex; it isn’t always easy to interpret why they do certain things. Thus, it becomes provocative; it’s truly a movie to talk about. It perfectly captures a time and place that so many of us see as a simpler time. The truth is it was a time of turmoil both at home and universally with the Vietnam War, Watergate and the changing sexual mores. The Taiwan-born Lee is the perfect director for The Ice Storm. The American lifestyle is always more interesting when viewed through the eyes of a foreigner. They are capable of providing an objective point of view and making the viewer see certain things in a different light. For example, he shows us the emptiness of infidelity and how it does nothing to fill the empty voids of the participants. He has a superb understanding of the “Me Decade” from the selfish attitudes of the adults right down to the actions of their children who could potentially carry such attitudes to the next generation.
The Ice Storm teems with period authenticity from the music on the soundtrack (Jim Croce, Frank Zappa and Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose) to the shows on TV (Time Tunnel, MASH). The fashions are spot-on too. The characters wear some hilariously hideous outfits. Ricci sports a pair of toe socks in one scene. The interior décor of the characters’ homes is also in keeping with the decade.
The Ice Storm is one of those rare movies with intelligent adult audiences in mind. There’s so much depth to it in terms of character and the events that transpire. It’s the perfect antithesis to the superficial movies that flood the multiplexes. I think it’s one of the finest films ever made. This is what cinema should be about.
