Set in the tony suburbs of New Canaan, Connecticut over a Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, The Ice Storm zeroes in on the behind-closed-doors shenanigans of two disfunctional families treading murky water in the fast-receding back-wash of a sexual revolution that the new decade has all but extinguished. As young sons and daughters grope their partners in post-pubescent uncertainty, wife-swapping has become the preferred past-time of the grown-ups. Deploying the same intuitive foreigner's perspective he brought to Sense And Sensibility, director Ang Lee, working from a screenplay adapted by James Schamus from the novel by Rick Moody, has crafted an intimate, fragmented social tableau distilled through a succession of brittle, unfulfilled relationships cloaked in guilt and self-loathing. In stark contrast to their work in the current In & Out and Alien 4, both Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver are nuance perfect as the adulterous neighbors, while Joan Allen, Christina Ricci and Elijah Wood shine brightly in key supporting roles. A perversely sardonic portrait of moral turpitude chilled numb by the eponymous storm's arrival in the final act.
