THE ICE STORM (74)

Directed by: Ang Lee

Starring: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Allen, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood

The Pitch: New England, circa 1973 : suburbanites dabble tentatively in the new permissiveness while their teenage kids nervously explore their burgeoning sexuality.

Theo Sez: There's a judgmental streak to this movie - calling for conservatism and family values, damning experimentation - which is unfortunate, but in truth it only threatens to take over in the final stages : like the John Updike novels it resembles (and anyone who's read, say, "Rabbit Redux" knows that Updike is himself no slouch when it comes to moralistic undertones), most of it is a very different beast, a muted cry of despair played as dark, ultra-dry comedy - above all in the Kline character, a lost soul floundering in a way that's both sad and comical : whether trying to engage his son in a wholly superfluous "heart-to-heart" about the birds and bees or over-rationalising his bout of infidelity ("We're having an affair. Right. An explicitly sexual relationship. Your needs, my needs"), he exemplifies the film's delicate balance between ridicule and compassion, a semi-affectionate, can-you-believe-these-people shake of the head. What it adds to the mix - most explicitly in Wood's performance but actually in its whole eerie feel, the bleak wintry visuals and the way it'll cut away abruptly in mid-scene, and its sense of a whole world standing still as if crystallised into a specific moment - is a suggestion of psychosis, anomie on the very cusp of spiralling away into madness : texture-wise, the film it calls to mind - improbably enough - is RIVER'S EDGE (also lensed by Frederick Elmes), another sick joke about societal self-destruction. It's self-conscious but full of atmosphere, quietly touching and surprisingly perverse ; its reputation - as a solid, rather po-faced drama - doesn't do it justice.