THE ICE STORM (1997)

Director: Ang Lee

The Ice Storm is beautifully shot, skillfully written and sensitively acted -- all these things sum up director Ang Lee's 1997 film, The Ice Storm. The Ice Storm is one of the best films of the past decade.

With the success of the true Best Picture of last year, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Director Ang Lee has become Hollywood's next "hot" thing. Slated to direct the big screen version of Marvel Comics' "The Incredible Hulk," he is also the name Pierce Brosnan keeps mentioning as the dream director for the next James Bond movie.

Taiwan-born Ang Lee first garnered American acclaim with 1995's "Sense and Sensibility." Sometimes it takes foreign-born filmmakers to really get the heart of the American experience, and this is a perfect example. Taken from the book by Rick Moody, Lee makes "The Ice Storm" into a cold, cautionary statement about what we think we know. The underlying theme is an old one, that of the sins of the father being passed down to the son, but it is relevant and all too often forgotten. Lee infuses the film with just enough humor to keep it from becoming unremittingly bleak, but the overall impact is harsh and caustic.

The Ice Storm is a searing portrait of suburban American desolation in the early seventies. The film appears to have angered large numbers of American critics for abandoning the comic edge of its source material (Rick Moody's novel). It is perhaps a surprising follow up for director Ang Lee to Sense and Sensibility and the wonderful Eat Drink Man Woman. It is a desperate portrait of empty lives and the beginnings of what we now call dysfunction in a family whose communication has collapsed with each member's increasing self-absorption in the moral wilderness of the Watergate era. But it hits hard and works well, and the results are quite rewarding for those with the patience and tolerance to stick with it.

Perceptive is the best single word I can come up with to describe The Ice Storm, Ang Lee's near-masterpiece that deconstructs the American family. For, although the film is provocative, entertaining, and impeccably crafted, its greatest strength is its ability to convey truths that lie deep beneath the surface. The Ice Storm is perceptive about people, relationships, and human nature, and there's not a single moment that rings false.

"The Ice Storm" understands with painful clarity just how cold the human heart can be, and how we don't have to look very far to grasp this notion. In fact, we only have to glance in our own backyards, and we might be shocked at what we find.

The Ice Storm is a small little film where the fate of the world is never at stake, but where actions have consequences, words have a deeper meaning.

Every character in this film is interesting, and it's a pleasure to spend time with each of them. No one here is perfect, and we're presented with finely-detailed portraits of flesh-and-blood human beings, with their strengths and weaknesses laid bare. All of the various relationships are likewise intricately developed: brother and sister, husbands and wives, parents and children, teenagers and their would-be sex partners, and men and women having affairs. It's amazing how real these characters are, and how profoundly engrossing such a simple story can be.

Lee accurately captures the "feel" of the early '70s, which is ironic since, during the year when The Ice Storm transpires, he didn't speak English and hadn't yet set foot in America. However, for those of us who lived through that era, there are plenty of familiar images and items. Some, like the bellbottoms, wide-collared shirts, and gas-guzzling cars, are expected. Others, like the bubble umbrella and the anti-pollution TV spot featuring a crying Native American, show that Lee was willing to take things to another level of detail. While it's true that The Ice Storm may not represent the reality of the '70s, it effectively fits our memories of the time.

The Ice Storm examines the unstable dynamic of the family in a constantly-changing world. It's a coming of age tale that shows how the discoveries and development of the parents parallel those of their children, and suggests that age doesn't always equate to understanding. Sexually and socially, everyone in this film is groping for answers, whether their age is fourteen or forty. In fact, it could be argued that the teenagers have a clearer and healthier approach to sexuality than their elders. More often than not, the children in The Ice Storm are open about what they want. The adults, on the other hand, feel the need to resort to deception and wife- swapping games to achieve the same ends.

The plot concerns the affairs (literally) of a nuclear family consisting of would-be playboy Kevin Kline, repressed wife Joan Allen, college student and comic reader Tobey Maguire and pubescent but sexually adventurous Christian Ricci. During a particularly vicious ice storm in Connecticut, each has a very different sexual encounter which leaves them only further apart both from one another and from themselves, until a death shatters the peaceful illusions of a society bereft of purpose and meaning.

At the end, the feeling you're left with is that none of these people are capable of leading fulfilling lives. Despite their material possessions and "open" lifestyles, all their searching has been in vain because they haven't found peace with themselves or each other, and the coldest part of all is that they probably never will.