 Most of the critics describe director Harold Ramis's The Ice Harvest as a black comedy. How black? Well, in her review in the New York Times, Manohla Dargis writes that it "easily takes the honors as this holiday season's biggest and dirtiest lump of coal." Dargis clearly hates the film, as does Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News, who calls it "blockheaded and totally tasteless." But Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun writes that the black mood of the movie is what makes it satisfying. "If you have an ounce of misanthropy in your body, a picture like this can draw it to the surface the way a leech draws blood," he comments. Indeed, several critics suggest that the film may appeal to the Scrooge in all of us. "As an antidote to the sugary confections of the season, its hung-over cynicism works wonders," Says Steven Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Or as Lou Lumenick writes in the New York Post: "The Ice Harvest is a treat for everyone who hates holidays." |
