The Ice House

The Ice House at first appears to be your typical English murder mystery. Gradually some differences emerge:

1. the pace is quite slow, much closer to a real investigation.

2. your sympathies are with the suspects. You can see why they are sick of co-operating with such loutish police asking the same questions over and over, making all manner of accusations. The police are smirking, rude, bullying, homophobic.

3. You don't know for sure if the various murders actually happened, and if so, who was murdered. This multiplies the number of possibilities exponentially.

4. The townspeople are revolting. Based on rumours they are sure who the culprits are and are keen on vigilante justice. They are brutish and stupid, far scarier than any murderer.

5. Daniel Craig (of later James Bond fame) plays the second in charge inspector. He is an alcoholic. He undisciplined. He is even handsomer than he was as Bond, and somewhat scary in his volatility. The chief inspector is a despicable character who ignores evidence and abuses his power.

It is quite a subtle film, except for the final scene when Craig gives the townspeople a dressing down they will never forget. This movie requires patience and lots of thinking. It about characters, not plot.

"The Ice House," a British mystery/police procedural just before the era of DNA evidence analysis, held my attention if only for the youthful star quality of Daniel Craig who appears in almost every scene but doesn't get top billing - I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him here assisting in a homicide investigation. He does most of the legwork; his boss is familiar with this address because the man of the house disappeared 10 years before - has his body been found, at long last, in the ice house on the property by the gardener? The ice house is nothing more than a hole dug out of the earth; the gummy remains (without clothing) have severe damage to the chest. What puzzled me most about "The Ice House" is the vague info from the medical examiner over the course of this 3 hour mini-series - he cannot ID the body for sure, the teeth are missing, the cause of death was a gunshot or maybe wild animals chewed on the chest - and the person has only been dead a few months or was it longer? Much longer? The program includes much talk about sexual activities - too much for my taste but overall, I liked this dated mystery and was quite surprised by the ending.

'The Ice House' is a truly remarkable venture, both in terms of plot and of characterization. As far as the slowly unfolding plot is concerned, the film is second to hardly any of the British (TV) mysteries of recent years such as Inspector Morse etc. The main characters are portrayed in a convincing yet cinematically appropriate way. Right from the very beginning the film psychologically probes the dark sides of human nature keeping the viewer in tight suspense right to the very end. Worth seeing !

The Ice House is a 1997 British mystery starring Daniel Craig, Corin Redgrave, Kitty Aldridge, Frances Barber, and Penny Downie. Three women living together and hated by the town come under suspicion when a body is found in their ice house. Ten years earlier, the husband of one of them, Phoebe (Downie) had disappeared, and at that time, she had been suspected of killing him by DCI Walsh (Redgrave). The other two women, Anne (Aldridge) and Diana (Barber) are lesbians. The town disapproves of them.

Daniel Craig plays DS Andy McLoughlin, who is also working on the investigation of identifying the man in the ice house. His boss is convinced it's the husband. But there is more to the case and to the home situation, as Andy learns; all the while, he's falling for Anne.

Very good mystery that really keeps you guessing. The lonely house provides a great atmosphere, and the characters are all well defined and well-acted. Daniel Craig is always good, and after seeing him on stage, I'm even more impressed with him. As a man with a troubled marriage, coming up against his boss, and getting personally involved with the case, he does a wonderful job. He and Kitty Aldridge have excellent chemistry.

Highly recommended.

I find it hard to believe that The Ice House was made back in 1997, watching it again I was surprised at just how fresh it feels. Only the cars and hairstyles seem to date it. The book is a great read, there's always a worry that something gets lost in translation when it's made for TV, not the case here, justice was done. It's a deep story, with more going on then meets the eye. At no point does it feel slow or padded, the characters are brilliantly brought to life, Downie, Redgrave and Craig all particularly good, but the surprise package for me was Kitty Aldridge, not an actress I knew a great deal about, but she was fantastic. Each Minette Walters adaptation that the BBC made I enjoyed, if only this kind of show was still being made. 9/10