The Ice Storm is a 1997 American independent[3] drama film directed by Ang Lee and written by James Schamus.

Based on Rick Moody's 1994 novel of the same name and set during Thanksgiving 1973 in New Canaan, Connecticut, the film features an ensemble cast of Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood, Katie Holmes, Glenn Fitzgerald, Jamey Sheridan and Sigourney Weaver as two neighbouring, dysfunctional upper-class families seeking escapism through alcohol, adultery, and sexual experimentation.

In 1973, two families in an affluent Connecticut suburb experiment with adultery and substance abuse over one Thanksgiving weekend.

Paul Hood has fallen for Libbets Casey, a classmate at the boarding school he attends, though his roommate Francis is also interested in her.

Ben thinks Mikey Carver is odd and withdrawn, while Sandy, the younger one, experiments with dangerous objects like toy explosives.

Paul leaves Libbets and Francis passed out in the apartment and just narrowly makes the train back to New Canaan.

Jim and Elena also get stuck due to fallen trees and return to the Carvers' house as dawn breaks.

Ben, Elena, and Wendy later drive to New Canaan station to pick up Paul, whose train was delayed by the power outage.

The Ice Storm was first brought to the attention of producer James Schamus by his wife, literary scout Nancy Kricorian, who knew Rick Moody from Columbia University's MFA program.

"[4] To prepare for the film, Lee had the cast members study stacks of magazine cutouts from the early 1970s.

[7] Said Schamus: "Hoping it would be below freezing, we drove up through Connecticut at night with a bunch of hoses and a water truck that we used to wet down streets and trees to get ice.

Ang Lee's film of Rick Moody's novel cuts through the kitsch to explore the emotional black hole at the heart of the period, the result being an utterly devastating and truly adult drama of the first order.

"[14] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: "Beautifully acted as it is, The Ice Storm still elects to keep its characters and their emotions at a distance.

Lee daringly chooses to keep his story's motivational mysteries unexplained, leaving this richly observed film open to the viewer's assessments.

Ms. Allen, especially poignant and graceful, conveys the sad dignity of a woman who can't help being well behind her changing times.

And the talented Ms. Ricci makes Wendy a touchingly real malcontent and a ticking time bomb.

"[15] In a 2022 retrospective for Little White Lies, Kevin Bui wrote that, unlike many films that also dealt with suburban dysfunction, The Ice Storm is "primarily focused on the sadness of its ensemble; their despondency to the prospect of change and the fear of the unknown.

Lee and Schamus wanted to have an "actual score", not a "nostalgic film with radio music of an earlier time".

The Academy Award-winning song "The Morning After", made a commercial hit by Maureen McGovern in 1973, also appears in the film as a briefly heard instrumental piece of music performed by Wendy's school orchestra.