Review of The Ice Storm (1997) by Blake P — 11 Jun 2015

Ang Lee is the master. Two-time Oscar-winner for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Life of Pi (2012) and director of Sense and Sensibility and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, no one creates a sense of time and place like Lee. This is on magnificent display in the very specific setting of 1973 New England. Baby boomers are making money and leaving (some) of their hippy roots behind for the lure of capitalism. They preach to and fret over their kids about the dangers of sex and drugs while participating in all the exact same behavior. Marital strife ensues.

Kevin Kline is sleeping with married Sigourney Weaver next door. She's using him for the sexual excitement she no longer feels with her husband, he thinks it's for real. His wife played by the sublime Joan Allen is a repressed, shoplifting homemaker looking for a meaning to her adulthood as the kids begin to leave the house. The kids are fantastic too. Christina Ricci owns her role as their politically minded daughter complete with toe socks and a desire to deflower as many boys as possible just to stick it to dear old dad. Elijah Wood is her main target - and Weaver's son. And Tobey Maguire, then unknown, is perfect as Kline's son, coming home from school for the holiday weekend and counting the minutes to get away from the tension.

The mood of the 70's is captured in the precise production design, costuming and plotting which includes lots of pot-smoking dinner parties, period musical cues and a Saturday night key party that is unforgettable. All of this hedonism of course leading to a terrible twist of fate as all the characters find themselves imperiled by their choices and the titular storm of the century. Rare is the film that grows in richness over the years the way this one has.

The entire cast is perfection down to great supporting players like Allison Janney and Henry Czerny as more swinging neighbors and Katie Holmes as Maguire's love interest. Weaver won the British Academy Award for her role and was Golden Globe nominated. But while The Chicago Film Critics Circle and the Writers Guild noticed the film's brilliance, this small masterpiece received no Oscar love at all in a highly competitive year. A shame as it's one of the best films of the 1990's, a personal favorite and the best Thanksgiving film ever.