Following the success of his first English-language film, the Oscar-winning Sense and Sensibility (1995), recently screened at the IFI, the next entry in Taiwanese director Ang Lee’s admirably eclectic body of work mined affluent 1970s American suburbia for its exploration of familial ennui. Ben (Kevin Kline) and Elena Hood (Joan Allen) and children Paul (Tobey Maguire) and Wendy (Christina Ricci) are close to neighbours the Carvers. This closeness extends to Ben’s affair with Mother Janey (Sigourney Weaver) and Wendy’s sexual explorations with sons Mikey (Elijah Wood) and Sandy (Adam Hann-Byrd). As the parents seek to break from conformity at a key party while their children seek connection, a winter storm descends on the neighbourhood on a night that ends with tragedies large and small. Lee’s empathetic depiction of loneliness stands as one of the best American films of the 1990s.

Notes by Kevin Coyne.