Sadly Over-hyped

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The movie is very depressing but very well done. I don't know if it may be deeper than what I got from it. It is pretty much about two families where adults fell out of communication with each other. They try to make their lives more fun with the new found freedoms of the 70's but it doesn't help because they lack connection.The kids are in the meantime also exploring their sexuality. And it also gives one a sad vibe as lacking any real emotions and excitement that comes with adolescence.The actors are all great. Actually the ones who played the teens ended up all being very well known. Actually they weren't new to acting with this movie anyways as they have been in business since childhood and so their acting already was experienced. Christina Ricci somehow manages to creep me out. Her sexual explorations make me feel like she is making something really wrong, even though she is a 14 years old and more like an innocent teenager starting life than a creep. The tragic end at the same time makes one wonder if this loss will turn around the lives of these two families after they witnessed the fragility of life and discovered how important it is not to miss communication with each other.

This is how you do Thanksgiving. This is a really good movie about a very specific time period in a very specific type of people's lives. Great actors, great acting, great pacing. It's all about the selfish "me" generation of the 70's, neglecting their kids and swinging and cheating and me me me. I think. And also about what those kids learn from the mistakes of their parents. It's a generations movie and there's a Fantastic Four analogy that keeps happening. Something about saving the world while a kid is in danger but if any one person gets too much power they all suffer (Me, is the downfall of the family unit). A really good and involving film.

This popped into my brain a few times during "The Ice Storm": with a movie like this, one wrong move and it could've gone "American Beauty" pretentious. It doesn't, to its credit. I feel like I'm supposed to actively dislike these character, but they just felt complex. Completely unrelatable, but at least not obnoxious. This movie never struck me on an emotional level, and even the tragedy that befalls one of the supporting characters is subtle and understated. I kinda wonder if maturity is the key to fully enjoying this movie. Either that or becoming emotionally dysfunctional, and here's hoping that doesn't happen.But aside from that, I think any of us can appreciate the authentic period detail, moody vibe and exceptional ensemble cast. On that level, this movie soars.6/10

The late '60s/early '70s were a hard era for everyone. Gone were the years of trusting the government, of listening to cultural norms; too cynical were the times. After decades of oppressive societal expectations, housewives no longer had to imitate Lucy Ricardo, the kiddos didn't have to reek of Cherry Cokes and wholesomeness, and the husbands suddenly didn't have to only bring home the bacon; they had to think about their feelings, too. Some thrived, some stumbled — putting out one's most kept secret emotions onto a table for everyone to see isn't an easy thing to do, after all. So you had your Bob and Carol and Ted and Alices, swinging away and having fun (for the most part), but you also had your bourgeoisie trying on the clothes of the open-minded and not knowing what the hell to do with them."The Ice Storm" is a flurry of sexual, drugged out, pathos infused liberties, perfectly capturing the simultaneously free and miserable echoes of its time period. None of the characters are happy, so much so that it seems fairly plausible that they miss the suffocation of the time in which they could mimic "Leave It to Beaver" and be contently empty. Ang Lee, pre-"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and post-"Sense and Sensibility", directs "The Ice Storm" not as a head-shaking cynic but as a voyeur helpless when approached by the lost decisions of Rick Moody's characters.Taking place over the Thanksgiving weekend of 1973, "The Ice Storm" puts in motion a parade of maladjusted actions, specifically focusing on the Hood family and their neighbors, the Carvers. Mrs. Hood (Joan Allen) has picked up a shoplifting habit and is hardly speaking to her husband; Mr. Hood, in the meantime, is having a soulless affair with Mrs. Carver (Sigourney Weaver). And as Mr. Carver (Jamey Sheridan) busies himself with out-of-town business ventures, the kids of the families mostly hang around his home. Wendy Hood (Christina Ricci), a sexually curious 14-year-old, is in the process of attempting to seduce both Carver sons (Elijah Wood, Adam Hann-Byrd), either through make out sessions or show-me-yours-I'll-show-you-mine romps. The older Hood child, Paul (Tobey Maguire), is away at prep school, experimenting with drugs and attempting to win the heart of the damaged Libbets Casey (Katie Holmes). All of these characters are like trains ready to derail, and as an upcoming ice storm looms in the clouds, ready to destroy the premises, their emotions begin to mount until they reach an existential breaking point. "The Ice Storm" is not the kind of film you analyze, the kind you have all figured out before the closing tells you otherwise. This is a movie you want to observe, to listen to, to discuss later but savor in the moment. The plot is complicated, sure to tangle — but it effortlessly connects the dots like a well-guided Altman epic, brilliant in its conception and brilliant in how well each side-plot complements the other. It's a movie of heightened discontent, one in which the characters attempt to escape by utilizing their newfound freedoms (sex, alcohol, drugs) but realize that, deep inside, a larger void is waiting to be filled and material things can hardly do the job. The film causes an ache in our heart, partly because it's difficult to see people suffer so intensely and partly because we are just as much in the dark regarding how to end their misery as they are. They feel helpless, we feel helpless — it's a vicious cycle that stays unforgettable.The performances are phenomenal, the actors embodying their roles instead of keeping a safe distance away from them. "The Ice Storm" is a movie built on emotion and life-is- comedy situations, not worn out melodramatic devices — Lee, certainly one of the most versatile directors of the last two decades, keeps melancholy pumping and solution at a safe distance; in Tinsel Town, it's easy to invent a resolution for the sake of a happy ending. But things aren't so simple in "The Ice Storm" — agony is much more common than glittered fuckery.