The story focuses primarily on two neighbor families in an affluent suburb in Connecticut during a Thanksgiving weekend. The Hoods, Ben (Kevin Kline) and Elena (Joan Allen) are struggling with their marriage as Ben seeks romance outside the marriage and Elena grows distant and unhappy, even turning to shoplifting makeup in an attempt to feel anything again. Their two children Wendy (Christina Ricci) and Paul (Tobey Maguire) have their own issues. Paul is away at boarding school as is dealing with an unrequited love for a fellow classmate. Wendy is fourteen and beginning to experiment with her own sexuality, pushing the boundaries with both of the neighbor’s sons.
The neighbor family, Jim (Jamey Sheridan) and Janey Carver (Sigourney Weaver) are also having marital problems as Jim is frequently absent and Janey is having an affair with Ben Hood. Their two sons Mikey (Elijah Wood) and Sandy (Adam Han-Byrd) find themselves both attracted to Wendy who is using them to explore her sexuality. Sandy, the younger brother, is also acting out, using explosives to destroy his toys, claiming he has grown bored of them.
This film explores many themes throughout its runtime. The predominant one is change. This is a film about the changes people go through throughout their lives and how they mirror each other at their various stages. Ben is unsatisfied with his life and his work so he seeks a new lover to help him cope with it. But the further he gets into this relationship the more unhappy he is. Likewise, his daughter is seeking something as she deals with the changing world around her. Gone are the optimistic 60’s and she looks at the world with a pessimistic eye, targeting everything from Nixon to colonialism to vent her frustrations with the world in general. She is compulsive, too, deciding at the spur-of-the-moment to approach Sandy in the restroom and “show me yours and I’ll show you mine.” Later she will offer to “touch” Ben while playing in his basement. This comes close to actual intercourse until it is broken up when her father happens to be there, abandoned by Janey after she decides she doesn’t need his depression in her life. He catches Wendy in an act he himself was on the verge of doing and gets her out of there. Wendy never questions why he was in the neighbor’s house in the first place but, later, when telling Elena what he saw, she questions why he was there and his answer only further stirs up her suspicions of his cheating.
There is additional drama added to the mix when Ben and Elena attend a business party only to discover it to be a swingers party complete with car keys in a glass bowl. Ben wants to leave but Elena insists on staying, using this moment to confront her husband on his affair. This occurs on the night of the Ice Storm referenced in the title. This storm will conclude with a tragedy that will close out the narrative and add a punctuation to all that everyone in this film has been taking for granted.
Last but not least is the story of Paul. His drama may be the least compelling on the surface but is actually just as telling of who he is as a character. He has a crush on fellow boarding school student, Libbets Casey (Katie Holmes). The problem is that his friend Francis (David Krumholtz) also likes her. When Paul is invited to her Manhattan apartment he is disappointed to find Francis there, too. As Francis and Libbets imbibe in alcohol and other substances Paul uses the opportunity to raid the medicine cabinet and give a sleeping aide to Francis in the guise of a recreational drug, thinking he can make the moves on Libbets once Francis is passed out. Unfortunately Libbets sees the pills and, also assuming it is a recreational substance, insists on taking some, too. When she passes out literally in his lap, Paul has an opportunity to take advantage of her. That he doesn’t, despite his earlier intentions to eliminate Francis from the evening festivities, says much about his character.
This film is about imperfect people making poor decisions and the unpleasantness of their consequences. It could easily make us dislike all of them. Yet that doesn’t happen. Ben comes across the worst because he is actively cheating on his wife but, while we cannot condone his actions, we can understand what has lead him there. For most of the film we feel bad for Jim Carver, the man whose wife is the second half of the affair. That changes in the aftermath of the swinger party and the choice he makes there. Our sympathies swing back in full force, though, after the ice storm and we see that he pays the ultimate price for the actions of all those around him. It is a harrowing scene that brings everything together in the end.
Everything works in this film. The acting is perfect all around, adults and kids alike. Perhaps the biggest surprise is Christina Ricci who had at this point never taken on a project as heavy as this. Up until now she had been known mainly as Wednesday Addams in two Addams Family movies, a light-weight drama about friends called Now and Then, and a disappointing Disney remake of That Darn Cat. Here she shows that she has the chops to really be a movie star. It is compelling to watch her play this part, even when the scene is not focused on her. This is not in any way selling the rest of the cast short, though. Everybody does a great job here, selling characters that should be unlikeable, yet aren’t.
This film may not be for everyone. It gives us a drama about people that some might find completely unlikeable. For some this is a hurdle too high to jump. But Ang Lee takes those characters and finds a way to make us care about what is going on with them. A big part of this is shaping those characters in a way that we can relate to. We don’t condone their actions but we understand them and feel bad for the decisions they make. We know that when Elena is shoplifting and obviously going to be caught that she is trying to feel anything during a time in her life where she is feeling nothing. In a way the film can be painful to watch. It is also compelling and relatable. Ang Lee, completely new to America at the time, managed to craft a film that feels authentically American in every way. It is a powerful film that draws many parallels both in the lives of the characters and in our own lives, imperfections and all.
Release Date: September 27, 1997
Running Time: 113 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Jamey Sheridan, Sigourney Weaver, Christina Ricci, Tobey Maguire, Elijah Wood and Adam Hann-Byrd
Directed By: Ang Lee
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