The Ice Storm(1997)

Short pooper
Mikey (Elijah Wood) is killed by electrocution from coming in contact with a fallen power line. The respective families end up converging, both due to this tragedy and the delays caused by the aftermath of the ice storm itself, after coming to terms with their failed attempts at a sexual escapade. As he picks up Paul (Tobey Maguire) at the train station along with the family, Ben (Kevin Kline) weighs on the events of the night before and breaks down in tears.

Longer version
The party which both the Hoods and the Carvers attend turns out to be a swing party, where everyone puts their car keys into a bowl to be randomly selected, one by each woman, who, in turn, takes off with the man who owns the picked keys. This tests the tense situation of the triangle between Ben, his wife Elena (Joan Allen) and his neighbour Janey (Sigourney Weaver) -with whom he had been having an affair, discovered by Elena and which led to a bitter fight between them both-.

Come Janey’s turn, she chooses a key that belongs to a younger party attender, which riles up an already drunken Ben; as he gets up to protest, he trips, hits his head and falls to the floor; when others help him up, he retrieves himself to the bathroom, to recompose himself and in shame of his display of jealousy. Eventually, the last two left turn out to be Jim (Jamey Sheridan) and Elena herself and they follow suit with the ritual. They drive off together and, after a while and having discussed the matter, they decide to engage awkwardly in sex, but neither of them enjoys it and an apologetic Jim offers to return Elena home.

Meanwhile, Paul enthusiastically travels to Manhattan to meet his classmate Libbets (Katie Holmes), whom he has strong feelings for, but his joy is short-lived when he notices Francis (David Krumholtz) is also present. Nonetheless, they all decide to have a mini-party, drinking and listening to music, and Francis and Libbets experiment getting high with prescription pills. Also, the sexually adventurous Wendy (Christina Ricci) arrives at Mikey’s house but finds Sandy (Adam Hann-Byrd) alone, instead; he confesses having a crush on her, to which she reacts by convincing him to get naked, jump into bed together, drink from a bottle of vodka while talking about each other and, eventually, falling asleep.

While all these interactions take place, an ice storm -a weather condition in which it rains softly at a very cold temperature, causing the accumulating water to rapidly freeze and form thick layers of ice, heavy enough to make everything dangerously slippery and cause power lines and trees to break and fall- develops and sets over the area. Mikey, with the enchantment of a little kid, sets out to admire the trees and roads blanketed by the icy layers; he gleefully skids downhill on a slope and comes to stop and sit on a roadside guardrail; unfortunately, while there, a tree, overcome by the weight of the ice upon it, gives in, snaps and falls on a power line, causing it to break off and swirl over the ground. Spellbound at the sight of this, Mikey fails to react as the power line makes contact with the guardrail, causing the boy to be electrocuted to death, after which his lifeless body just slides off, further down the hill.

Along with the aftermath of the storm itself and the arrival of the following morning, all characters slowly converge towards a catharsis: Paul opens up to Libbets while she, under the stupor of the drugs consumed, tells him she just sees him as a dear brother before passing out along with everyone else, upon which a despondent Paul leaves and barely catches the commuter train back home, only for it to break down halfway. Jim and Elena, after overcoming undriveable roads and fallen trees, make it to Elena’s house, where she, in shock, discovers Wendy and Sandy naked in bed together, wakes them up and commands her to get dressed. Janey returns to her own house where, visibly overwhelmed, she curls up into a fetal position in bed while still dressed from the night before. Finally, a recomposed Ben, en route to his house, discovers Mikey’s body on the road and, upon realizing it is him, he brings him back to the Carvers’, which has both families put aside their building animosity and be bound in a sorrowful moment -minus Janey, who was still asleep in bed, unaware of the tragedy-. Even Wendy attempts to comfort Sandy, but he seems too shocked to grasp it.

Towards the end, Ben, Elena and Wendy drive together to the New Canaan Commuter Station to pick up Paul -whose train also found itself delayed due to the power outage stemming from the storm-. As they are all together in the vehicle, Ben suddenly breaks down and starts bawling uncontrollably. Paul watches, trying to understand the reason of his father’s outburst -naturally oblivious to everything that happened in his absence- as Elena tries to comfort him.