Sling Blade.

• Author: Sharrett, Christopher

The crisis within the nuclear family has been something of an obsession in the Hollywood cinema of the last 25 years as the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate punctured the ultimate symbol of American community. Films such as "Ordinary People" (1980) and "The Great Santini" (1979) cast doubt on the viability of the traditional patriarchal household. Recent films suggest that the cinema's skepticism about the utility of the family continues apace, with the audience quite receptive.

Atom Egoyan's "The Sweet Hereafter" (1997) is a melancholy reflection on the demise of family solidarity. An icy and rather socially disaffected civil lawyer (Ian Holm) discovers a community that has suffered a terrible tragedy -- a school bus full of children skids off a road and ends up submerged in a lake, killing most of the youngsters on board. At first, the town's parents seem amenable to the suggestion by the attorney of a class action suit against the bus company.

Soon, though, the psychological density of the picture emerges. The lawyer is profoundly alienated from his drug-addict daughter, his relationship consisting of occasional strained phone calls and small favors. While the attorney seems a bundle of neuroses, his motivations muddled, it is apparent that his attempt to persuade the town to avenge the dead children through a suit is his chance to make his own failed parenting right. His suggestions regarding the suit come across, however, as wholly mercenary.

Viewers also learn that one of the girls who survived the crash long has been in an incestuous relationship with her father, one of the suit's key plaintiffs. At the penultimate moment, the girl's deposition sinks the case altogether, as well as the lawyer's hopes for personal redemption. The suggestion is that the failed parent is not to be given a second chance and the abusive parent is not to be rewarded.

Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm" (1997) covers somewhat similar terrain, especially with its images of frozen landscapes (albeit in a different part of North America). "The Ice Storm" deals with the posh suburb of New Canaan, Conn., in the mid 1970s. Watergate as part of the American media iconography becomes a metaphor for a valueless, disintegrating family and community.

Several families of the suburb are united primarily through mate-swapping and careerism, One housewife (Sigourney Weaver in a superb role) has an insatiable sexual appetite that, as is the case with most characters of the film...