The Ice Storm Pics

The Ice Storm is a 1997 drama film directed by Ang Lee, based on the 1994 novel of the same name by Rick Moody.

The film begins at a dinner party at the Carvers' house as the adults discuss pop culture references that defined the 1970s: the Watergate scandal, swinging parties for married couples, and the pornographic film Deep Throat. The Hood family includes Ben (Kevin Kline), Elena (Joan Allen) and their children, 16-year-old Paul (Tobey Maguire) and 14-year-old Wendy (Christina Ricci). Their neighbors, the Carvers, include Jim (Jamey Sheridan), Janey (Sigourney Weaver) and their children: Mikey (Elijah Wood) and Sandy (Adam Hann-Byrd).

Both families are depicted as uncommunicative, with the parents having difficulty talking to their own children and to each other. Ben, dissatisfied in his marriage and with the futility of his career, is having an affair with Janey. Elena is bored with her life and is looking to expand her thinking but is unsure of how to do so. Wendy enjoys sexual games with her school peers. Paul, an occasional drug user, is trying to bed his schoolmate Libbets Casey (Katie Holmes). The Carvers' two sons are lonely and confused: Mikey plays along with Wendy's sexual games, while Sandy is obsessed with violence.

Jim Carver travels for his job and is, for the most part, not involved in his children's lives. In one scene he returns from a trip to find that his sons had not even realized he had been gone. Janey, who appears to be carrying on with a number of other men in addition to Ben, finds Jim to be largely an annoyance and would prefer he remain gone all the time. Elena, who is becoming tired and bored with her life, buys spiritual and self-help books and becomes friendly with the hippie-ish minister of a local church. But she is ultimately turned off by his subtle passes and his patronizing behavior towards her. She attempts to shoplift, as has Wendy; both are caught in the act.

During their trysts, Ben obsesses to Janey over his displeasure with his job and his frustrations at continually being bested by his colleague, smarmy George Clair (Henry Czerny). Janey, however, seems to have become bored with the arrangement since she has now become unfaithful, not only to her husband but to Ben as well. She abruptly leaves the room just prior to a planned sexual encounter with Ben, excusing herself to get "birth control pills" but instead flees the house leaving Ben alone.

Realizing that she is not returning, Ben prepares to leave but comes upon his daughter Wendy in the Carvers' basement initiating a sex act with Mikey (a few days previously, she had revealed her genitalia to Mikey's younger brother Sandy). Ben then has an awkward discussion with Wendy about "the birds and the bees". Wendy (who presumably has already obtained this information from other sources) is visibly bored with the conversation. Seeing this, he changes tack and tells her he's really not all that upset with her, except that he thinks that Mikey may not "be right" for her.

As the evening begins, a storm hits New Canaan which evolves into a dangerous ice storm.

When Ben reveals to Elena that he found Wendy in the Carvers' basement, she is more concerned with what he was doing there, eventually concluding (correctly) that he must be having an affair with Janey. They have a brief argument over it prior to attending a neighborhood party, which turns out to be a swinger's