The Ice Storm (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Icy lives
I, personally, was not alive in 1973 -- it was a decade too early for me and my closest friends

But Ang Lee gave us some glimpses into the landscape of 1970s suburbia, in the wake of the sexual revolution. "The Ice Storm" is a chilly, bitterly lonely little drama, with moments of biting humour and poignant alienation between these people. They pass each other, but never touch.

The Carvers and Hood live in the same affluent suburban neighborhood, and on the surface all seems well. But self-absorbed Ben Hood (Kevin Kline) is having an affair with the icy Janie Carver (Sigourney Weaver), and his daughter Wendy (Christina Ricci) is experimenting with Janey's son Mikey (Elijah Wood. And Elena Hood (Joan Allen) is experiencing an identity crisis as a woman.

Things start crumbling over Thanksgiving weekend, when Ben finds Wendy and Mikey in a compromising position (which involves a Nixon mask), and Elena figures out the truth about her husband's affair. As an...

The Criterion Collection deluxe treatment!
Director Ang Lee has had a fascinatingly diverse career. He's tried his hand at the literary adaptation with Sense & Sensibility (Special Edition), the Civil War epic with Ride with the Devil, a period martial arts tale with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and a comic book adaptation with the much-maligned Hulk (Widescreen 2-Disc Special Edition). He has successfully dabbled in several genres and with The Ice Storm, he adapted Rick Moody's 1994 novel of the same name, a drama set in 1973 during the waning years of the sexual revolution.

The Ice Storm feels like an Ingmar Bergman or John Cassavetes film from the 1970s with a dash of Atom Egoyan (the look of either Exotica or The Sweet...

Classic
The old cleche the book is better than the film is usually true. A writer can convey an idea in a word, page or chapter. A film maker, somtimes, only has a shot.

But not ture for Ice Storm. I both read and viewed. The elaborations in Moody's book are on political events, decorating styles, and small details of the early 70s. Toe socks. Metal ice trays.

Director Ang Lee works these into each shot of his 1997 film, about two, next door familes, Thanksgiving weekend, 1973. Coouples are having affairs and testing group sex. Everything held true was false. They were lied to about Vietnam and were embroiled in Watergate. The country they knew, gone. Their early teen kids are expermenting with sex and drugs.

In the book, Ben Hood, the father, spanks his kid with a hairbrush. Is unrepentant about his afairs. There is viscousness. In the movie, Kevin Klien's Ben is flawed too--but is gentle, uncertian, ashamed of his indiscretions, trying but failing to find...

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