Films: Ice Storm proves that decadence can be chilling

It's tempting to see The Ice Storm as a morality play disguised as a kitschy satire on '70s suburbia, because the rich bastards of New Canaan, Connecticut, seemingly get what they deserve. They create a world where infidelity's a silly game, where the fulfillment of desire justifies betrayal; the plot clambers toward its logical end, a chilling outbreak of chaos. But The Ice Storm can't be a morality play because it has no standards by which to judge its characters. Everyone's implicated, but who's to blame? The only question to ask is how (not if or why or when) things will fall apart.

The Hoods and the Williamses are neighbors--though their ugly, large homes are separated by vast stretches of forest. Both parents and children are involved in a strange sexual tangle. The film delights in the complexity of the situation raging between the two families, focusing equally on adults and children. While both sets of parents want to teach their children about sex, they fail because they haven't yet learned the important lesson: self-control. When Benjamin Hood (Kevin Kline) stumbles through the "birds and the bees" talk with his son Paul, the only advice he can manage is that Paul shouldn't masturbate in the shower because it's a waste of water, and the location's too obvious. After Janey Williams (Sigourney Weaver) catches her youngest son playing "you show me yours, I'll show you mine," with Wendy Hood (Christina Ricci), she tries to give Wendy some advice. "Our bodies betray us," she stutters. "In Samoa and other developing countries, adolescents are sent out into the woods and they don't come back until they've learned a thing or two."

The film's youngest characters seem to know more than the adults, they also give the best performances. Christina Ricci is downright spooky and charmingly innocent as Wendy Hood. Like Kids; The Ice Storm isn't afraid to confront adolescent, or even prepubescent sex. But while Kids'' point of view was limited by the IQ of its protagonist, The Ice Storm is focuses on the comic side of adolescent sexual experiments while insisting that, even for kids, sex is primarily about manipulation and power. There's not much difference between Janey Williams (who ditches Ben Hood while he's still in his boxers, sure to be found by her husband, while she runs off to do errands) and Wendy Hood (who seduces Mikey Williams while wearing a Richard Nixon mask). For the Hoods and Williamses, love is both a joke and a fiction.

As the kids try to learn what sex is all about, their parents continue to willingly embarrass themselves. Ben Hood, so eager to bust his daughter for fooling around with the son of the woman with whom he's having an affair, indirectly admits to his affair. Hood isn't stupid; he just doesn't realize that infid-elity is a ma-jor problem. "What else could I be besides unfaithful?" is his defense. And the sexual mess just continues
to grow.

The mess reaches its chaotic peak at the "key party." Couples drop their car keys into a bowl when they arrive. Later, the wives take out a set of keys and spend the night with the owner. The couples approach the game with the fervor of fifth graders playing spin the bottle, while struggling to deny the massive undercurrents of jealousy which paralyze them.

Paul Hood, a comic book fanatic who's been sent off to boarding school, is the film's most puzzling character. In the novel, he's a mischievous narrator whose gossipy tone often softens the unbelievability of the melodramatic narrative. It's clear that he's stretching the story to make it better, which adds an element of whimsy to the bleakness. But in the film, Paul's a peripheral figure. He's off at prep school, taking bong hits and trying to score with a shallow Manhattan rich girl, and eventually gets stuck on an iced-over Metro North train. Still, his voice-overs, which muse on the Fantastic Four's similarities to the family, poignantly reflects the madness of the story.

The Ice Storm refuses to resolve its characters' fates. Has anyone learned anything? It's more likely, I think, that New Canaan won't change. As the thick coat of ice slowly melts, the characters and the audience have to ask: when people work so hard together to corrupt the one structure--the family--that offers a way to cope with tragedy, is it any wonder that they can't figure out a reasonable way to be moral?

Sites related to this article
NOTE: SITE WILL APPEAR IN A NEW BROWSER WINDOW

• Fox Searchlight Pictures official site for the Ice Storm
• The Ice Storm at Hollywood Online

Back to A & E...