The Ice Storm (1997)

Set in the Connecticut suburbs of Thanksgiving 1973, as the Watergate scandal blares on the TV news, two disaffected upscale families deal with the sexual revolution, changing values and alienation due to unspoken dissension. One of the best films of the 1990s, director Ang Lee beautifully captures the angst of a decade where everything was turning upside down. We could no longer trust our leaders, marriage was no longer sacrosanct (the key party sequence remains as startling now as it was then) and alcohol and drugs could no longer blunt the pain. Reportedly the novel's author Rick Moody was very pleased with Lee's film and one can see why. Not necessarily cinematic, Lee's film feels like the equivalent of reading a first rate contemporary novel, his images (beautifully shot by Frederick Elmes, BLUE VELVET) carefully approximating the details of the book's prose. Lee manages to get stellar performances right down the line, especially from its youngest cast members like Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci (never better), Elijah Wood and Adam Hann Byrd. The unobtrusively delicate score is by Mychael Danna. With Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Allen, Katie Holmes, Allison Janney, Jamey Sheridan, David Krumholtz and Henry Czerny.