It is the weekend after Thanksgiving 1973, and the Watergate scandal is unfolding in the background. In suburban New Canaan, Connecticut, families and moral standards have come unglued. Ben Hood (Kline) is drinking to avoid trouble at the office while his long-suffering wife Elena (Allen) buries herself in self-help books. Son Paul is home for the holiday from prep school but takes off by commuter train to pursue a rich girl he knows from school, while his younger sister Wendy prowls the neighborhood, other people's belongings, and even other kids looking for trouble. The Hoods go to a party where drinking, sexual experimentation, and drug use take them further out of control, just as the worst ice storm in recent memory hits. Janey Carver (Weaver) proves especially intriguing to Ben, and Elena retaliates furiously. The events of the movie, based on the novel by Rick Moody, take just 24 hours, and leave the principals (as well as the viewer) stunned and exhausted. It's a depressing film, but skillfully written, acted, and directed (by Taiwan-born Ang Lee in 1997, between "Sense and Sensibility" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"!).
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The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus