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The Ice Storm | Year: 1997 Classification: Drama Country: USA Language: English Directed: - Ang Lee Actors/Actresses: - Joan Allen - Katie Holmes - Allison Janney - Kevin Kline - David Krumholtz - Christina Ricci - Sigourney Weaver - Elijah Wood - Kate Burton - William Cain growing up IS hard to do... You can tell just from the first shot in The Ice Storm that it will completely envelop you. The crackling sound as the train comes to a stop on a cold Connecticut night, the beautifully poetic score by Michael Danna, the twinkling trees and landscape revealing a calm after the storm. You have a feeling that the beauty is masking a lot of desperation and vulnerability. It is a really bold piece of New American Cinema. Tackling the same old issues, but in a way that is startlingly fresh and revealing. Kevin Cline is great as a fumbling, bored NY businessman who finds a tragic way to rock the family suburban lifestyle. And Joan Allen is amazingly sparse in her portrayal of an early 1970's housewife who finally confronts her husband's infedelity. Tobey Mcguire (who also narrates the film) and Cristina Ricci, as their children, give equally delicate and involved performances. Sigourney Weaver is given her best role here, as the swinging wife of Jamey Sheridan, who is supposedly the genious that helps develop silicon from sand. Rounding out the cast is Elijah Wood as their troubled son, and Adam Hann-Byrd as his younger and more eloquent brother. Overall, It's an beautifully interwoven story of the miscommunications between two neighboring families. And it really confronts the overtone of the early 1970's era, by setting up parallels between the harsh political climate (a la Watergate) with what is hapenning between the two families. But I think the most meaningful and touching aspect is how we see love (or at least a sexual awakening mistaken as love) blooming between 2 teenagers in a way that is heartbreakingly real. I really appreciated how they made the experiences between these young characters appear genuine, loving, and meaningful. It isnt often that a film captures what love feels like for someone so new at it. I think one of the delicate ironies of the film is that, despite their youth and inexperience, these people's children probably have a better understanding about what love is really about than they do. I think the film is also about a loss of innocence, but not necessarily a loss of sexual innocence. It shows how sometimes children are thrust into adulthood because of traumatic events in their lives, and they often times loose a part of themselves in the process. The ending is truly devastating, but so poetically rendered and realistically fleshed-out. It really makes you feel an incomprehensible sadness that is never really resolved before the film ends, which is infinately refreshing. As we all know, there isn't always a fitting way to console the heartbroken. So maybe its best to just leave it at that. It probes deep into the intricate concepts of love, family, betrayal, and loss. It is as delicate a film as they come. Surely the best film Ang Lee has ever done. And i think greatly overlooked as possibly one of the best films in the past decade. The Best Movie of 1997 and then some I rented this movie on a Christmas Eve last year and haven't been the same since. The sadness, the angst, the coldness of our modern existence are all laid out here for all to see. Desperately, the characters try to add some sort of pleasure to their staid suburban lives but end up feeling cold....Sigourney Weaver blows me away with her performance, she should always do serious dramatic work instead of being exploited into "comedy" or disasters like Alien Resurrection. The young tobey maguire is heartwrenching, his voice overs are incredibly moving. I love every aspect of this film and I think that it is sad that American Beauty, a completely inferior film takes home oscars while The Ice Storm was virtually ignored. Forget the no-talent establisment Kevin Spacey and go for this film to see a Kevin Kline you've never seen before. Dark,compelling story set amid social changes in the 1970s This fim is moody and morose, just like the book which I read a few years ago. It now has a talented director (Ang Lee) and some well-known actors (Kevin Kline, Signorey Weaver). The Ice Storm is a metaphor, of course, and the scenes takes place over a Thanksgiving weekend in New Canaan, CT in the early seventies. The parents are experimenting with the sexual revolution. The teenage children and smoking pot and feeling the anti-war movement. The sudden social changes are confusing everybody. The story is dark and compelling and the children come across as more real than the parents. It is a hard film to watch, given its subject. Thought it was was excellent athough I wasn't smiling when the film ended. I was thinking. Buy The Ice Storm at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on The Ice Storm Search with the Priority Search Engine on The Ice Storm This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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