The Ice Storm

There are not many points of similarity between The Ice Storm and Ang Lee's previous film, "Sense and Sensibility". Except perhaps Lee's visual mastery of the medium. Compared with "Sense and Sensibility", it is harder to pin down this film's central themes.

The Ice Storm is set in the 70s in an upper-middle-class commuter town in a scenic area. The action takes place around Thanksgiving, when the son of the Hood family, Paul, comes home from college for the holiday. The cold outdoor temperatures mirror the atmosphere indoors, where the married couple Ben and Elena are barely on speaking terms. Ben is cheating on Elena with the neighbour's wife, Janey Carver, but Elena's silent frustrations have other, deeper causes than her suspicion of Ben's affair. Ben and Elena are not present enough to see that their sulky 14-year-old teenage daughter Wendy is a precocious girl on the verge of womanhood. She and the neighbours' boys, Mikey and Sandy, are at a stage where they are beginning to take an interest in their own sexuality and that of the opposite sex.

The Ice Storm thus focuses on two families. Materially they are well off, but spiritually and ethically they have lost their way. Ang Lee's film portrays a decade in which irresponsibility and attention to one's own needs came hand in hand with a liberation that was perhaps only apparent after all. It is almost a foregone conclusion that this outlook on life can only lead to misfortune. The film ends with a snowstorm and a tragedy. The Ice Storm has just one flaw: it can be perceived as being as cold as its title and its characters, with whom one may well sympathise, but never quite comes to identify.