《冰风暴》的故事发生在康涅狄格州，一场初冬的暴风雪，为即将来临的感恩节披上了一层厄运的裹尸布。在一处树木繁茂的郊区，富人们在错层式的豪宅里不安地骚动着，厌倦了一成不变的生活、娱乐乃至罪孽。他们十几岁的孩子开始重蹈同样的覆辙：酒，大麻和性。
胡德一家生活在平静的绝望中。本（凯文•克莱恩）与邻居詹妮·卡弗（西格妮·韦弗）多有暧昧，他的妻子埃琳娜（琼·艾伦）是个商店惯偷，被一位长发飘飘的牧师勾引。小孩们在厨房偷饮酒水。在感恩节晚餐前的祷告，年轻的温迪·胡德虽语出惊人却一语道破真相：“感谢您让我们白人杀死所有印第安人，并且偷走他们所有的东西。”本和埃琳娜后来谈到，“这些年来我们唯一有过的大冲突就是该不该回去参加夫妻团体治疗。”
电影根据里克·穆迪的一篇小说改编而成，李安执导，其在先前对《理智与情感》一书的改编为他带来了声誉。此两部电影都是关于家庭的内部协定以及与其他家庭之间的交际，只不过规则改变了。本•胡德来到詹妮·卡弗的家里，他信步走进詹妮的娱乐室，却不期然发现了女儿温迪（克里斯蒂娜·里奇），其时后者正与詹妮的儿子麦基（伊莱贾·伍德）偷尝禁果。而温迪，一个14岁的女孩，此前已经与麦基的弟弟桑迪试过一次。父亲厉声质问女儿她在干什么。温迪当即反刺了他一句。
上世纪60年代的社会革命风潮无孔不入，到了70年代初期，这股力量已经渗入雅皮士阶层，他们是这样一群人：渴望“随心所欲”，不惜用冷藏车来补充马提尼酒，以满足自己的享乐主义。影片的时代背景正值如火如荼的性解放运动，这也导致了片中本·胡德给儿子讲授的生活事实：“在淋浴室手淫既浪费水又浪费电。”当詹妮·卡弗发现她儿子和胡德家的女儿在玩“如果我给你看，你也给我看”的游戏时，她的反应是一篇离奇的、玛格丽特·米德在萨摩亚所作的关于即将到来的时代的演讲。
细致入微、极富文学性的剧本，詹姆斯·夏慕斯让场景在孩子和父母之间来回切换，获得了一种平行对照的效果。保罗坐火车进城，来到喜欢女孩的公寓。他在她的酒里放了安眠药，令她变得更亲切愉悦，接着她便昏倒了。与此同时在新迦南，成年人们参加的“钥匙舞会”正逐渐演变成一种竞赛：他们能在各自伴侣喝醉之前完成换妻吗？埃琳娜·胡德甚至在那儿发现了那个长发牧师菲利普（迈克尔·昆普斯蒂）。“有时牧羊人也会需要羊的安慰，”他宽容地解释道。她回答说：“我会努力不去理解这句话的含义。”
影片中的一个场景颇具象征意义，它让人感到一种被拧紧的悲剧感：雨势连绵的夜晚，空荡的泳池，结冰的跳水板，一个孩子在其上竭力保持着平衡。当灾难真正来临时，它的雨水仿佛是为某个角色释放着无助的泪水，看到这里我们不禁沉思，这个人究竟承载了多少痛苦。尽管影片寓意沉重，观众还是可以从中感受到它的讽刺和滑稽，以及，隐含在表演中的细节，例如当本在絮絮不止地谈论自己对高尔夫的厌恶时，詹妮陷入沉思，最终她忍无可忍地说道：“你使我厌烦。我已经有丈夫了，不需要再来一个。”
他们都觉得需要些什么。我们在影片结束之后的感觉是，纯粹的快乐已经被化学药品所取代，后者让我们失去感受快乐的能力。借此他们获得了想象的逃避，却真真切切地被困住了。
原文：
"The Ice Storm" takes place as an early winter storm descends on Connecticut, casting over Thanksgiving a shroud of impending doom. In a wooded suburb, affluent adults stir restlessly in their split-level homes, depressed not only by their lives but by their entertainments, and even by their sins. Their teenage children have started experimenting with the same forms of escape: booze, pot and sex.
The Hood family is held together by quiet desperation. Ben (Kevin Kline) is having an affair with a neighbor (Sigourney Weaver). His wife Elena (Joan Allen) is a shoplifter who is being hit on by a long-haired minister. The children sip wine in the kitchen. Young Wendy Hood's grace before Thanksgiving dinner is to the point: "Thanks for letting us white people kill all the Indians and steal all their stuff."Ben and Elena observe later, "The only big fight we've had in years is about whether to go back into couples therapy."
The film, based on a novel by Rick Moody, has been directed by Ang Lee, whose previous credit was an adaptation of Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility."Both films are about families observing protocol and exchanging visits. Only the rules have changed. When Ben Hood visits Janey Carver (Weaver) for an adulterous liaison, he wanders into Janey's rec room to find his own daughter, Wendy (Christina Ricci), experimenting with Janey's son Mikey (Elijah Wood). Wendy, who is 14, has also conducted an exploratory session with Mikey's kid brother, Sandy. The father asks his daughter what she's doing there. She could as easily have asked him.
The early 1970s were a time when the social revolution of the 1960s had seeped down, or up, into the yuppie classes, who wanted to be "with it"and supplemented their martinis with reefer. The sexual revolution is in full swing for the characters in this movie, leading to Ben Hood's lecture to his son on the facts of life: "Masturbating in the shower wastes water and electricity."When Janey Carver finds her son and the Hood girl playing "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours,"her response is a bizarre speech on Margaret Mead's book about coming of age in Samoa.
The literate, subtle screenplay by James Schamus cuts between the children and their parents, finding parallels. Paul takes the train into the city to visit the apartment of the girl he likes; he puts sleeping pills into her drink to make her perhaps more agreeable, and she passes out. Meanwhile in New Canaan, the adults are attending a "key party"that turns into a sort of race: Can they swap their wives before they pass out? Elena Hood even finds Philip, the long-haired minister (Michael Cumpsty) there. "Sometimes the shepherd needs the comfort of the sheep,"he explains tolerantly. She answers: "I'm going to try hard not to understand the implications of that."
There is a sense of gathering tragedy, symbolized in one scene where a child balances on an icy diving board over an empty pool. When disaster does strike, it releases helpless tears for one of the characters; we reflect on how very many things he has to cry about. Despite its mordant undertones, the film is often satirical and frequently very funny, and quietly observant in its performances, as when the Weaver character takes all she can of Kline's musings about his dislike of golf, and finally tells her lover: "You're boring me. I have a husband. I don't feel the need for another."
They all feel the need for something. What we sense after the film is that the natural sources of pleasure have been replaced with higher-octane substitutes, which have burnt out the ability to feel joy. Going through the motions of what once gave them escape, they feel curiously trapped
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