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| Ice Storm, The |
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  (8/10)
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Runtime: 112 |
| Public Rating: 6.48 (27 votes) |
Director: Ang Lee |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Modern Social Male Drama |
Year: 1997 |
| Writer(s): Rick Moody (novel), James Schamus |
| Distributor: Fox Searchlight |
| Reviewed by: Ertug Tufekcioglu |
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The Ice Storm gets cold, it freezes and then it deciphers at the end.
Every storm comes with a fear of possible violence and damage. The ones, who wait to be the victims of it, secretly desire for that moment so they can experience the pain. Storms and other natural disasters announce the time for an inevitable change. The important moment is the duration of that change—the storm itself. Later the survivor has to deal with the results and soon be lost in the same boredom again…
Early 70s, America’s one of the richest state: Connecticut, and its piteous residents: the rich! Their sickness is the tedium and side effect is the gloom, which are both contagious amongst them, and the outcome is innocent perversions that make these people more deaden.
Two neighbor families; Hoods and Carvers share the same woods and same tragedy in their lives. Ben Hood (Kevin Kline) has an affair with Janey Carver (Sigourney Weaver), while his wife—Elena Hood (Joan Allen) tries to ignore it by shoplifting around. They hide their boring sins behind their fake smiles. Conversely, Ben acts like a righteous father figure when he sees her daughter—Wendy (Christina Ricci) exploring her sexuality with Janey’s son—Mikey (Elijah Wood).
The kids seem like they accept the crooked path of their families and go into that direction helplessly. Two brothers drink in the kitchen. Wendy and the youngest Carver drink Vodka from her father’s bottle before sleeping together. The kids in NY apartment get wasted and pass out with the girl’s parents’ sleeping pills. Wendy messes around with two brothers. Just like copying their parents’ casual sex, chain-smoke and alcoholism.
First, Euro-Americans did the Native American genocide and then suffered the vanity of their lives with unnecessary possessions and alcohol. The Ice Storm points that issue in a great deal. The thanksgiving grace that Wendy gives at the table, Nixon’s false speeches and later the zoom on Native American’s face on TV, the film’s score that sounds Asian where Natives originally traveled from to America, all announce the veil of death. Mikey searches the excitement of life in the nature, the molecules such as a minimalist search. Yet, he is unsuccessful like his father and gets too much energy in the wrong format—electric shock. His numbness is eternal now like his father’s in his unhappy life.
It is one of those few movies where the situations make you laugh while you feel truly sorry for the characters who are actually responsible of that farce. Ang Lee shows the details of the plot in a slow pace and patient editing style. The last scene, which is the main que to combine these two families’ tragedy, is the best. When you smell this picture twice, it is definitely a male-melodrama or so called social drama of males in our society.
Another Asian poem about America by Ang Lee’s soft voice.
Ertug Tufekcioglu
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