The Ice Storm
The Ice Storm
Ohjaus:
Ang LeeKäsikirjoitus:
James SchamusKuvaus:
Frederick ElmesSävellys:
Mychael DannaNäyttelijät:
Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Henry Czerny, David Krumholtz, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Jamey Sheridan, Elijah Wood, Sigourney Weaver, Adam Hann-Byrd (lisää)Juonikuvaukset(1)
It is Thanksgiving, 1973, and the Carvers and the Hoods are two prototypical suburban families seemingly living the good life in New Canaan, Connecticut. Behind their New Age philosophies and polyester fashions, however, lies deep discontent. One husband carries on an unsatisfying affair with the other family's wife, while his teenage daughter experiments sexually with both of the neighbor's boys. When a winter storm descends upon their upper middle class neighborhood, buried resentments bubble over, leading to a tragedy neither family will ever forget. (jakelijan virallinen teksti)
(lisää)Arvostelut (7)
Why didn't someone explain to Danna that he was not composing music for a Chinese historical film, but for an American psychological film? Well, not actually very psychological…and not at all as chilling as the metaphors that it uses (family members are separated by sheets of ice and their relationships slowly approach the freezing point). If life wears you down a bit sometimes, watching The Ice Storm doesn’t. Though it outwardly addresses major issues, it’s banal and suffers from literalism (what do you call a party that’s a key element of the narrative? A key party!). Ang Lee takes care to ensure that every shot makes us aware that the story is set in a period when the United States had definitively lost its innocence, but with the exception of the reference to Deep Throat and the bizarre “Fuck Nixon” scene (or whatever you want to call it), I saw no reason why the whole relationship drama couldn’t have been set a decade earlier or later. The actors perform according to expectations, but the behaviour of their characters doesn’t make a lot of sense and is rather lacking in authenticity and uncalculated emotion. Now I would like to cleanse my palate with some Altman-style vitriol (Short Cuts, perhaps?). 60%
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A showcase of the director Ang Lee's work. It is an ambitious psychological drama that strives to capture the crisis of moral values through the gradual deterioration of two marriages. The film has a refined form, which I give 5 stars, but in terms of content, it lags behind. The emotional impact of several strong scenes, such as the wife swapping through key drawing, is greater than all seasons of Californication combined, and it is nice that the film does not try to exploit this chaos and looks at the actions of the film characters critically, but the raging elements and the fateful accident were supposed to be the catalyst of conflict and drive their heroes towards catharsis. Here, it feels more like a dampening element that masks the fact that none of those who went back to their homes changed their characteristics and behavior. The weak one remains a coward, the self-centered remains selfish, and the hypocrite remains a hypocrite. In terms of the cast, it is a luxurious affair. Just for this, The Ice Storm is worth seeing. And there is one more thing that makes Ice Storm interesting. It is one of the last Hollywood films where smoking tobacco is depicted as a common part of the middle-generation lifestyle. American cinema once played a significant role in promoting tobacco on screen, but in the mid-90s, studio executives sensed a change in the social climate and, with their own hypocrisy, caused cigarettes to disappear from films before any pressure could come from activist organizations. As the protagonist of the film Thank You for Smoking says, if a smoker appears in a movie today, they are either a psychopath or a European. Overall impression: 90%.
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The actress is quite convincing, the chemistry between the man and woman is average, but it’s very good between the husband and wife, albeit not completely believable. Ang Lee portrays the problem of adolescence very sensitively and many scenes are heart-wrenching. The intimacy is immense. The adult world is not as excellent and there are holes in the story, especially the malfunctioning third weel in the form of Sigourney Weaver, whose character is not strong or distinctive enough. But it is definitely worth watching. Ang Lee is a man of many visions and he was close to fulfilling one here.
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A cynical materialization of the inherent comicality of interpersonal relationships. We see the ridiculousness of upper-middle-class marital etudes everywhere, but The Ice Storm offers no relief even in the innocent humping of socially incarcerated teens, whose loves and relationships are portrayed here with equal picaresque and brokenness with virtually no possibility of repair. This is aided by the cast of then-young freaks Maguire, Ricci, Hann-Byrd, and Wood, all of whom come across as terribly creepy here. "I’m back!" "You were gone?".
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I liked these two weirdly connected families a lot. The drama was palpable, Tobey Maguire wasn’t spitting cobwebs everywhere (which was a good thing), Christina Ricci was like Wednesday again (which was even better), and I savored all the quiet desperation.
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A film that stands on incredibly stable foundations of actors' performances, where not a single actor is poorly chosen and they all play what is needed for a given scene. Above all, young actors who deliver truly great work will surprise you. Kevin Kline should also be given more opportunities in good films.
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Ang Lee has made a superb relationship drama that abounds with a host of excellently written and acted characters – the sexually emboldened but also cold and empty Christina Ricci, the helpless and frustrated Tobey Maguire, the calculating but also extremely fragile Sigourney Weaver, and the love- and emotion-hungry Joan Allen. Overall, there is nothing to fault in the choice of actors, and when you add Ang Lee's sensitive yet matter-of-fact direction, you get a film that is profound, sad, and beautiful all at the same time.
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