The Ice Storm is a movie that's trapped under the ice, and it'll leave you feeling the same way.
The Ice Storm (1997)
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Reviews Counted:54
Fresh:44
Rotten:10
Average Rating:7.6/10
Consensus: Director Ang Lee revisits the ennui-laden decadence of 1970s suburban America with deft humor and gripping pathos.
Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Director Ang Lee's main concern is a subtle examination of family life that he began with THE WEDDING BANQUET and EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN. With THE ICE STORM, Lee creates a truly American period film... Director Ang Lee's main concern is a subtle examination of family life that he began with THE WEDDING BANQUET and EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN. With THE ICE STORM, Lee creates a truly American period film that is equally concerned with family relationships, set in 1970s New England. 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. An intense, well-acted drama based on the novel by Rick Moody, THE ICE STORM is a masterly depiction of the frigid emotional life of suburbia. Great care was taken to accurately recreate the fashion, philosophy, and music of the 1970s without devolving into camp. Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, and Joan Allen all excel in their roles, but it is the younger actors (Christina Ricci, Tobey Maguire, Elijah Wood, Adam Hann-Byrd) who steal the show. [More]
Starring: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Allen, Tobey Maguire
Starring: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Allen, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Henry Czerny, Courtney Peldon, Adam Hann-Byrd, David Krumholtz, Jamey Sheridan, Elijah Wood, Katie Holmes, Michael Cumpsty, Allison Janney
Director: Ang Lee
Director: Ang Lee
Screenwriter: James Schamus
Producer: James Schamus, Ted Hope, Ang Lee
Composer: Mychael Danna
Reviews for The Ice Storm
With good direction, and excellent acting, The Ice Storm paints a vibrant picture of suburban life in the early 70s.
With The Ice Storm, Lee seems to have emphasized the details of cultural accuracy over the rudiments of telling a gripping drama.
Disturbing and discomfiting, The Ice Storm is a slice of lonely, desperate reality that I hope I never visit.
Adult hypocrisy and adolescent concupiscence in the suburbs is nothing new, but unlike the book, Lee and his actors overcome stereotype to find new humor and humanity in the premise.
Despite its mordant undertones, the film is often satirical and frequently very funny, and quietly observant in its performances.
Over and over again in Austen, [Lee's] framing, his course of action, his editing suited and amplified the essence of the scene. But here everything in his directing, absolutely everything, is banal.
A devastating film that will almost certainly leave you emotionally drained.
Perceptively detailed in both the directing and acting, The Ice Storm commands strictest attention from start to finish.
An atmospheric, moody, and entertaining little morality play which never gets preachy or even boring.
The Ice Storm is so life-like and real that if the settings were modernized, it would still be topical today.
'Come back with us to those rolicking years of the 1970's and watch two dysfunctional families dysfunction!' I know you want to sign up right now.
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