The Ice storm: Review
Ang Lee has directed the film “The Ice Storm,” which is based on a novel by Rick Moody. Ang Lee is a Taiwanese-born producer and movie director working in America. He has previously directed Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility” and Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi” which became very famous.
The film is starring quite a few talented actors including Kevin Kline, “Avatar” and “Alien”-star Sigourney Weaver, Tobey Maguire, who later starred in “Spiderman”, and “Lord of the Rings”-star Elijah Wood.
The Movie takes place during Thanksgiving in 1973, in the suburbs of Connecticut, where a dangerous ice storm hits. The movie presents two dysfunctional New Canaan families, who are trying to deal with the consequences of the social revolution of the 1960s: The middleclass had grown, and every family wanted the perfect suburban life: a father, who worked in the city, a stay-at-home mom, two to three children and a large house in the suburbs. This does unfortunately not, give the films main characters, the happiness they are looking for: The Hood family is only held together by desperation. The father, Ben Hood, is having an affair with his neighbour, Janey Carver, and his wife is a shoplifter who is desperately trying to feel young again. Their son, Paul, is home for the holidays but is more interested in going to the city to pursue his rich-girl crush from prep school. Their daughter, Wendy, is dating the Carver family’s son Mikey, but might be more interested in his little brother.
Many of the social problems in the 1970s are very obvious in the film. Sex, drugs and adultery are all prominent in the film. The sexual revolution is in full swing for the characters. Both the parents and their children are experimenting with new things as a way of escaping reality. The parents goes to a so-called “key party,” where male partners place their car and house key into a bowl, and at the end of the evening the female partners would randomly select keys from the bowl and leave with that key's owner. Also the kids are experimenting with drugs and sex; Paul smokes marijuana various times in the movie, and his sister, Wendy, enjoys sexual games with her neighbours’ sons.
Director Lee have named the film ‘The Ice Storm’, not only because a literal ice storm occurs in the film, but also because there lays symbolism in the name. The name represent the ice-cold emotions the characters display to each other. In the movie, the storm hits at the same time as the climax occurs and everything is spinning out of control for the characters.
The movie perfectly describes the sad reality of the 1970s American suburbs, and gives a good insight on how it was to live in the suburbs as a parent and as a child. If you are looking for a movie filled with action and explosions, this is not the movie for you, but if you are looking for a movie that gives you something to think about, and is packed with drama and conflicts, this is the one for you.