Roles are reversed, wives are swapped and suburbia increasingly becomes chaotic in the intriguingly weird film, “The Ice Storm.” The film is set in New Canaan, Connecticut in November of 1973. It opens with Paul Hood (Tobey Maguire), a 16-year-old prep school boy on a train during a bitter ice storm. The film then flashes to Paul’s 14-year-old sister, Wendy (Christina Ricci) watching Richard Nixon’s televised address. She tells her brother that Nixon is lying and when he’s caught mass chaos will erupt.This is the one scene that epitomizes the movies underlying theme. Basically, the ultimate public figure, with whom the people place their trust and well-being, is caught in a lie. The characters revert to adolescent behavior, feeling betrayed by the structured confines of society. They rebel against the norms imposed by authority and experiment with sex and drugs.Every character in “The Ice Storm” is ultimately searching for something and some don’t even know what it is they are searching for. Ben Hood (Kevin Kline) is having an affair with next door neighbor Janey Carver (Sigourney Weaver), who is a Peggy Bundy type mom, who just can’t get a hang of the whole motherhood thing. In one scene Janey finds her introverted 12-year-old son Sandy (Adam Hann-Byrd) purposely blowing up his model airplanes. In a motherly attempt to correct his behavior, she takes away the explosives and gives him a leather whip to play with instead.Trying hard to fill the void left by her workaholic husband Jim (Jamey Sheridan) Janey picks up the hobby of community whore – in my opinion, she should have joined the PTA.Although he makes a concerted effort to conceal his infidelity, Ben’s wife Elena (Joan Allen) is aware of the reality of their situation. Elena is unhappy and wants to end the marriage, but hesitates out of financial dependence and fear. She tries to be a part of the sexual revolution that surrounds her, however, as the movie progresses, she gives up and begins to lose patience with her husband’s lame excuses and clumsy lies. Mikey Carver (Elijah Wood), the 14-year-old son of Janey, can only be described as weird. He is very distant (kind of spacey) and the film offers no explanation for his strange behavior. For example, in one scene he is playing football with a bunch of other boys. He goes back for a pass, is in perfect position and just watches the ball fly right by him.Wendy is also a tad bit strange. She is obsessed with sexual foreplay. She grew up playing with neighbors Mikey and Sandy and recently has gone through those “changes.” No longer a little girl, she invents new games (if you know what I mean) to play with the boys.The climax of the flick occurs during an ice storm. A confused Wendy mimics her dysfunctional sex-crazed role models – her parents. Intimidated by the way Mikey looks at her, she focuses her attention on Sandy.This is the part of the movie that really bothered me. Able to dominate the young boy, she basically sexually molests him, taking advantage of his extreme admiration for her. It began as a innocent game of “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours,” but ended with them both naked in bed together. Meanwhile, Janey and Jim and Ben and Elena find themselves at a neighborhood “key” party. Everyone puts their keys in a bowl and at the end of the night each wife fishes out one set. They go home with the husband who owns them. Basically, it’s a lottery drawing of wives, a good old wife-swapping social. It’s not the whole sharing deal that pissed me off, it’s the fact that neither the husbands nor the wives even thought about the consequences of their actions. I’m not talking about repercussions that could effect them. I’m talking about the impact this could have on their children. Despite the many unexplained quirks and moral bankruptcy of the characters, “The Ice Storm” did hold my attention and was an overall good film.