Review of The Ice Storm (1997) by Darren P — 15 Jan 2008

Before Ang Lee gave us gay cowboys eating pudding he directed this exploration of the early 1970s sexual revolution in suburban New England in an archetypal tale of the American nuclear family in decline. This movie is based on the book of the same name by Rick Moody. The story centers around the (the following is excerpted from Amazon) "Hood and Williams families, neighboring two-parent, two-child households built around increasingly dysfunctional marriages. Benjamin Hood, plagued by a loss of importance at work and a growing drinking problem, pursues an ill-fated affair with Janey Williams; his wife, Elena, feels herself losing what little regard she has left for him. Meanwhile, the adolescent children of both families experiment with sex, alcohol and drugs to find identities and to overcome a ponderous sense of alienation. A neighborhood "key party," at which couples exchange mates by drawing keys out of a bowl, brings the action to a chaotic climax as an apocalyptic winter storm culminates in physical tragedy to match the emotional damage in the small community." The writing, direction, and performances in this film are nothing short of superb.

Best Quotes:

"In issue #141 of the Fantastic Four, published in November 1973, Reed Richards has to use his anti-matter weapon on his own son, who Annihulus has turned into a human atom bomb. It was a typical predicament for the Fantastic Four because they weren't like other super heroes. They were more like a family, and the more power they have, the more harm they could do to each other without even knowing it. That was the meaning of The Fantastic Four, that a family is like your own personal anti-matter. Your family is the void you emerge from and the place you return to when you die. And that's the paradox, the closer your drawn back in the deeper into the void you go.".

"Ben, you're boring me. I have a husband. I don't particularly feel the need for another.".