Genre Guesstimation – The Ice Storm (1997)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s genre has been chosen by Carl of Listening to Film and we will be reviewing our favorite Ensemble Movies.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Sep by sending them to ensemblecarl@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice Carl!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of Ensemble Movies.…

“The only big fight we’ve had in years is about whether to go back into couples therapy. ” – Ben Hood

Number of Times Seen – Twice (9 Sep 2009 and 8 Sep 2019)

Brief Synopsis – Two families are affected in many different ways as they deal with the changing world around them of the the 1970’s.

My Take on it – This is a film that I saw almost exactly a decade ago and the only thing I recalled was the spectacular cast.

They are able to take a very interesting idea and present to us how difficult things can get in a world that was rapidly changing during the early 1970’s no matter their age.

The cast of this film is superb and they help make us believe the different issues that each of them encounters over the course of the Thanksgiving holiday which was a turning point in all of their lives.

They all have very distinct character arc which are constantly evolving over the course of the film and that makes it even more intriguing to watch.

Unfortunately, the story itself gets quite complex and it’s probably explained much better in the source novel in much more detailed ways since they don’t have any time constraints limited them to explore these themes.

The ensemble cast helps enhance the story even more because each of these characters could conceivably be the lead since they all have great plot threads.

The biggest drawback of this tho is the fact that none of the characters are focused on enough and due to time constraints, each of the story lines don’t feel as if they have enough time to be explored thoroughly.

Bottom Line – Interesting idea that tries to show how difficult the world was becoming for people of all ages during the 1970’s. The cast is superb and they are able to make us believe the various issues that each of the characters faces during these pivotal days that surround the Thanksgiving holiday. Each has a very distinct arc that changes rapidly over the course of this film. The story itself gets a bit too complex and is probably explained in much more detail and depth in the source novel which can give better explanations of things because they aren’t faced with a time constraint. The ensemble cast helps enhance the story because we get to see the various plot threads move along with each character in different ways. The drawback of this tho is the fact that there isn’t enough time to explore each of the characters and their stories even more thoroughly. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Rick Moody, the author of the novel was so pleased with the film he sobbed through the end credits. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Not quite. The story is enhanced by the ensemble cast, but the story gets much too complex for its own good which probably worked better in the book.

Rating – Globe Worthy (7/10)