The Ice Storm (The Criterion Collection)

Suburban Connecticut, 1973. While Nixon s impeachment hearings blast from the TV, the wayward Hood and Carver families try to navigate a Thanksgiving break simmering with unspoken resentments, sexual experimentation, and cultural confusion. With crystalline clarity, characteristic subtlety, and even a dose of wicked humor, Academy Award winning director Ang Lee adapts Rick Moody s acclaimed novel of American malaise into a trenchant, tragic portrait of lost souls. Featuring a cast of tremendously talented adults (Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver) and kids (up-and-coming stars Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood), THE ICE STORM is one of the finest films of the nineties.

Special Features
* - New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Ang Lee and director of photography Frederick Elmes
* - Audio commentary featuring Lee and producer-screenwriter James Schamus
* - New documentary featuring interviews with actors Joan Allen, Kevin Kline, Christina Ricci, and Elijah Wood
* - New video interview with novelist Rick Moody
* - Deleted scenes
* - Footage from an event honoring Lee and Schamus at New York's Museum of the Moving Image
* - Production designs and sketches, with commentary by the designers
* - Theatrical trailer
* - PLUS: A new essay by film critic Bill Krohn

Asian American director Ang Lee sums up America in the early 1970s by focusing on the arrival of the sexual revolution in the 'burbs. Isolationism within a family, consumerism, and selfishness are personified by a cast that captures the self-obsession within two New England families. As the children struggle awkwardly with adolescence, their parents stumble through sexual experimentation. In the days of Watergate and Vietnam, society is breaking boundaries and ignoring convention. Following suit, these families are eschewing polite barriers and social taboos, with disastrous results. The "ice storm" of the title refers not only to a natural phenomenon but is a (rather heavy-handed) metaphor for a pervasive emotional temperament. The entire cast delivers textured, finely nuanced performances. This movie lingers in the psyche not only for the scope of the tragedy at its conclusion, but for Lee's often humorous and stingingly accurate assessment of pop culture. Based on Rick Moody's novel, this won the best-screenplay award at Cannes in 1997. --Rochelle O'Gorman