The Ice Storm (1997)
Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Christina Ricci; d. Ang Lee; A-

The façade of suburbia that hides the decay of the family is a darn easy subject to do. It's been done a million times, yet everyone seems to love it every time - No matter how unoriginal it is. We've seen the Cheating Husband and the Scorned Housewife with the Disobedient Child With Low Self Esteem who's Experiments Sexually with some Weird, Drugged-Out Kid whose family is more defunct than the their neighbors who all decay together in Happy, Sunny Suburbia. It's one of those genres you have to accept in its low amount of originality, like the coming-of-age or the disease of the week.

Initially I wasn't so sure The Ice Storm was one of those well-crafted films of a tired and true genre. My first viewing left me cold - Not because of its dejected tone, or even the ice storm referenced in the title, but it all seemed deeply flawed. The characters seemed underdeveloped and did things that made no sense, and I really couldn't care less for any of them. But as my mind kept flowing back to this film, thinking about what it all might mean (which eventually lead me to my second viewing within 24 hours), I realized this was a near masterpiece of character, observation and tone, so subtle in its methods that it made me feel like a moron.

The Ice Storm takes place in the early 70's, in the middle social and political change that I wasn't alive to experience. But though the setting plays largely into the theme and characterization, it can easily be set in modern times, because basically it's about the confusion and disconnection one gets from being in the center of a storm - A physical, emotional, societal storm.

The characters in The Ice Storm, both adult and adolescent, have lost themselves in the turmoil of 1970's and the inner turmoil of suburbia. They've lost themselves in the swirling of theories, facts, movements, and social responsibilities, and to keep themselves happy and sane they indulge themselves in little sexual games. In reality, their fun has brutal consequences.

One of the problems I had with The Ice Storm was that the characters all seemed to be some kind of symbol instead of an actual human being. Now I think they're a combination of both. They're symbolic in that they represent some aspect of the time period, suburbia, and the family structure. Ironically this makes them more human in that their methods are clear and the effect of their actions is clear. The only character I never fully grasped, the only character who remained just a symbol to me (especially after the conclusion), was Mikey (Elijah Wood), whose obliviousness to everything around him and his apparent stupidity was highly unnatural and could not be pinned to any information provided in the film (you could say drugs, but the film's narrator, Paul, played by Tobey Maguire, was frequently seen doing drugs and still came off as a bright and alert fellow - among several other characters. Mikey is only seen doing drugs once, and that was just drinking a few sips of leftover alcohol). Maybe he's just as mentally incompetent as his father was sexually incompetent, or maybe he is really just a symbol of the general emptiness the characters feel and their obliviousness to the consequences of their actions. Or maybe I'm just overanalyzing and really am just as slow as Mikey.

The cast is truly solid. Each and everyone flesh out their characters so well that you understand every single thought that's going through their minds, even when they don't say anything. You understand their despair and their guilt (or lack there of). Director Ang Lee, whose Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon I did not like, here he shows a mastery of tone: The slow pacing is unsettling, cold. You wait for something bigger to happen. You wait for some big show down that will result in bloodshed. Instead you're given something more subtle, but brutal. It shows human despair, human emptiness, and it doesn't cut away, unless only to show the outside world covered in ice.

What's best about The Ice Storm is its ending. Effective, but abrupt, dangling in the air like an icicle. Disturbing. When I first saw The Ice Storm, it awakened me to all those things I missed before that moment. I pondered about the movie long after it had ended. And still I said I didn't like it, knowing it's a sign you've seen a good movie when you're still thinking about it hours after you've seen it. The Ice Storm is a subtle marvel in social and human commentary, an achievement in filmmaking that makes your draw drop more every time you think about it.

© Vert A Go Go Reviews 2002