La tormenta de hielo

I am deeply touched. I can not believe it took me 7 years to get to see this movie. It goes straight into my top ten.

The movie is based on Rick Moody's 1994 novel about the life of two suburban families in New Canaan, Connecticut during the time of the Watergate scandal: A time of sexual liberation and of disintegration of existing social norms and of the nuclear family. The characters may stand as symbols of the kind of people that are created out of a society with decreasing social norms. They are ordinary people who live in material welfare, bored, unhappy, confused, scared of conflicts, and constantly seeking something else than they already have.

Instead of being examples to their children, the parents are constantly trying to run away from their own emotional confusion for instance by seeking casual sex and thereby hurting each other. In the meantime the children are left to their own upbringing, watching bad TV shows, emptying their parents' drinks, blowing up toys on the balcony, shoplifting, experimenting with sex and drugs. The communication between parents and children is terrible, or should I say non-existing. They all live in their separate worlds, all the time more disconnected, until a tragedy caused by a natural disaster finally calls them back to life and, hopefully, makes them look beyond themselves and see how valuable and fragile life is. May this provoke back the belief in what the family as a unit can do for each other if they stand together?

The movie is both uncomfortable and at the same time enormously satisfying to watch – perhaps because the theme is presented in such a human and recognizable manner. The dialogue is great and there are even very funny scenes at times. These people seem so real and so fragile, like you and me. It is as if we can see right through their souls and their pain.

The cast is brilliant (except for that irritating Katie Holmes with her cheap Hollywood teenage series look). I have never seen a movie plenty of child actors acted out as professionally and convincing as this one. Christina Ricci is the best and Elijah Wood is also excellent (much more enjoyable than in LOTR), making me wish they were young again so they could have more roles in movies like this.

The atmosphere caused by the weather gives a kind of somber mood stressed by the dimmed colors and the mystical music score.

"Ice Storm" not only describes the weather in the Connecticut countryside but is also a metaphor for the pall which hangs over a pallid and dysfunctional middle-class suburban family of four in the 1970s. Sporting a stellar cast with Ang Lee at the helm, this well crafted, sensitive, artful production takes the audience into four lives outwardly living the "American Dream" while inwardly existing in a state of empty unfulfillment and quiet desperation. The tedious and laconic nature of the film may lose the less patient audience while those with a taste for psychodrama should enjoy it.

Thanksgiving weekend in Connecticut in 1973, two families work through their problems. Talk about dysfunctional families! This one has two such clans, and every member of each family is assigned an issue (kleptomaniac, sex addict, social misfit, absentee parent, depression, etc.). It makes for a very contrived drama. The impressive cast manages to overcome some of the shortcomings of the script, but it all seems so heavy-handed. As a couple whose marriage has fizzled, Kline and Allen come off the best. The makeup department went a little overboard trying to evoke the 1970s look, with Weaver looking particularly odd as a woman who's cold as ice.

I was astonished to find out how many bad reviews in this site for "Ice Storm" here. I voted 9 out of 10 without hesitating. I've seen this movie twice, and the 2nd time was even more disturbing in a remarkable sense, which compelled me into a deep thinking mode. Phillip, (on the message board), you're so right! `Ice Storm' was indeed a gem that entitles equally what "American Beauty" has earned. Both movies were focusing on the American mid-class's love lives, their middle-aged marriage crisis, and teenagers beguiled by sex. `Ice storm" was filmed in a musically melancholic tune than `American Beauty'. It's about life, brutally honest, and objective. It's about the rotten love lives of average American couples, inwardly, those who would dare to break the rules, for exchanging a moment of stealing pleasure, such as Sigourney Weaver; Kevin Kline, who has surrendered to sexual seduction; Jane Ellen, Kevin Kline's wife, frustrated by the dysfunctional marriage, yet tuning away from sexual liberation. Sadly, the victims of typical contemporary Hollywoodia pace has found `Ice Storm' a `slow and dull' movie that makes them yawning. Why not simply obtain satisfactions over weeping for an affected Hollywood's love tale `Titanic'. Other noteworthy, is the music scores of `Ice Storm' is depressing, enchanting, very beautiful.

I went to see this film with one of my friends, in a cinema I had never been to before. It was one of those rare and delightful experiences where you are the only people in the theatre. No one around to distract you. No kids munching on crisps, or couples quietly muttering sweet nothings, or idiots trying to tell the characters what to do. It was great.

The film was just brilliant. It really nearly broke my heart. Every performance is perfect. The direction by Ang Lee is deliberate and painful as he slices into you with the lives of those he makes you watch. It looks amazing, in a beautifully bleak way. It is also one the most compelling and painful movies that I have ever come across. The family life portrayed is messed up and all the relationships that are displayed are disfunctional on some level or other. But still I was forced to care for them - all of them. Such is the brilliance of the acting and the script writing.

I own this film, but I can't watch it alot. Once a year is just enough. It's to traumatic and beautiful to watch more than that.