The Ice Storm (1997)

Screening as part of the 2025 From Page To Screen film festival

Introduced by writer and director Rebecca Lenkiewicz

It’s 1973 in New Canaan, Connecticut – a time of waterbeds, Watergate and wife-swapping.

Janey Carver (Sigourney Weaver) is preparing a racy Thanksgiving party in her split-level modernist home – she’s also conducting a half-hearted affair with neighbour Ben Hood (Kevin Kline), while his wife – repressed and depressed Joan Allen – kills time shoplifting. Outside, an ice storm is brewing – magnificently captured by cinematographer Frederick Elmes (Blue Velvet) and the great Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Sense and Sensibility).

A rare outing for James Schamus’s sophisticated adaptation of Rick Moody’s satirical novel (described by the Guardian as “one of the wittiest books about family life ever written”), The Ice Storm is bleak and painfully funny, harrowing at times. Its dazzling ensemble cast includes teenage stars Elijah Wood, Tobey Maguire and an unforgettably cynical Christina Ricci as the adolescents mirroring their parents’ joyless experimentation with drink, drugs and sex. 

Dir. Ang Lee, USA 1997, 113 mins. With Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood.

Certificate 15 

Screening sponsored by Margery Bone and Colin Teague 

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