Rating: 
Summary: Incest as a Sweet Candlelit Experience!
Review: Excuse me, but didn't anyone except one reviewer here notice that this novel revolves about repeated and "soul-robbing" incest between Sarah Polley's character and her father, which is why she lies during the deposition. The Pied Piper of Hamblin that she reads throughout the film is a metaphor for incest her central horror and concern. The candlelit scene between her and her father implies mutual consent which derails the book's ending where she lies to get back at her father. Read the book where incest is shown to be the horror that it is. To show it as romantic is irresponsible both to the book's intention and to the actual experience of incest. Oh well, just underline the Ego in Egoyan and you get the picture!
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite as good as I'd hoped
Review: I looked forward to seeing this film after all the positive things I'd heard about it. And it was generally satisfying. I do admire Egoyan's "objective" camera, screenplay and resistance to manipulation of the audience. But at the heart of it there is a certain coldness and clinical quality that makes the film "a tale well told", but curiously unaffecting. This detachment makes it feel "all head and no heart". Still, well worth a look.
Rating: 
Summary: Poetic, beautiful and bittersweet
Review: This is innocence lost, but it isn't just the children who lose their innocence: it's the whole town and all the adults. Nicole (Sarah Polley) dreams of being a rock star, and her father lovingly fosters the dream. He does everything for her including being her first lover. And then there is a bus accident and she ends up in a wheel chair and is told she is lucky, since many of the other children died. But she doesn't feel lucky. She turns her bitterness toward her father. She has read Robert Browning's "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" to two of the children who died, and now sees her father as a piper who has failed her. The love they had, now in the light of the loss of her innocence, is seen as a fraud. And she hates him.Meanwhile, big city lawyer Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holms) comes to town with the promise of getting a big settlement for the parents of the dead and injured children. He has an axe to grind and that axe is all that is left of his life. His sadness is a daughter who is a drug addict who calls him only for money. He can never say no, and she can never stop using him. Billy Ansell lost his wife to cancer and is left with two young children. He finds sexual gratification from another man's wife. When his children are killed he loses his love for her. The lie that Nicole finally tells to hurt her father is for him, and symbolizes her turning from her father outward to another man. Director Atom Egoyan seems to be saying that people stop loving one another sometimes with reason, and sometimes without; and that the sadness of life is a failure of love, that the brutality of life can kill our love. This is the tragedy of innocence lost, of our expulsion from the Garden of Eden, forcing us to see ourselves as naked and morally corrupt. The cold white mountain slopes that surround the little northern town remind us of how cold it is in the world away from childhood. I have always objected to "the loss of innocence" as a falsification of who we are. We were never innocent: it only seems so in retrospect. It is not the fathers who corrupt their daughters nor the daughters who betray their fathers: it is rather the species mechanism that drives them apart, sometimes with such brutal force that all are hurt. Our expulsion from the Garden of Eden symbolizes our loss of ignorance, the growth of our neocortex, and our assumption of consciousness. Again we were never innocent: we just didn't know what the hell we were doing or why. Now we know, except we kid ourselves a lot. Sarah Polley's performance is so natural, vivid and balanced that I felt that I knew her as someone in my own life. The entire cast does a good job, especially Ian Holm. Atom Egoyan has a deft touch that is focused and realistic, never extreme. He doesn't preach to us and he works hard to be fair to his characters. Ultimately, he's a cinematic artist, and a good one.
Rating:
Summary: a perfect movie
Review: I do not like superlatives but I consider this a [or, maybe, the] perfect movie. The script is tight and economical: there is not a wasted word. The direction is geared to telling the story simply and profoundly, and totally without sentimentality. The breathtaking performance by Ian Holm [some of the best acting in a film I have ever seen] has the unfortunate side-effect of making it harder to notice how wonderful the other performers are; but only for a moment. It is a wondrous thing that a film that tells a story that is so sad, even depressing, can be so thrilling. Somehow, there is a reaffirmation of humanity.
Rating:
Summary: gorgeous adaptation of a wonderful novel
Review: having read the novel of the same name, i was hoping that themovie would do it justice. i was not disappointed. the movie allowsthe 4 characters from the novel to speak the same words, the same language, the same sad stories -- but in a way that is more poignant, more tragic, more real. the underlying motives of the characters in the movie may not be as clearly spelled out as they were in the novel, but the filmmakers do such a fine job weaving this tragic story of a small town (sam dent, new york) that you can guess motives just looking at the actor's expressions. the most brilliant factor of the film, not present in the novel, is the parallel between robert browning's story/poem the pied piper of hamelin, and the stories of those who survived this small-town tragedy. an eerie narration of this famous children's story is spoken by nicole, a teenager who survived the school bus accident, and it has overtones that absolutely recall the lives of the people of sam dent. nicole's part in the novel is only 1/4 of the story. in the movie, she becomes a symbol of all that has changed in the town after the accident. her adolescent view of the events leading up to the class-action law suit by the people of sam dent leads her to make a striking move. she understands people more than they understand themselves, especially her incestuous father. perhaps because of her incestuous father. at times, you feel sorry for everyone and other times you feel sorry for no one. there are so many secrets that this small town absolutely disentgrates with the loss of its children. as did the town of hamelin. But opposite the place of the cavern/They wrote the story on a column/And on the great church-window painted/The same, to make the world acquainted/How their children were stolen away/And there it stands to this very day.
Rating:
Summary: If You Thought This Was Slow You Better Check Yourself
Review: This movie was psychologically and ethically fasincating and complex. The time sequences was divided to give the film a more dramatic punch. I wasn't sure who to side with. I was almost convinced by the lawyer that someone needed to be punished. When the incest victim was added to the scenario it changed everything so completely I was mesmerized. I remember the lawyer needing to know every secret about every body in that town and he didn't know one important secret which changed everything. The movie was also effective with atmosphere. The incest scene was disturbing. I almost didn't know if that was her boyfriend or her father. If this film had dealt with the subject matter any other way it would have come across as cliche and therefore trite. I wanted to know the nature of each character's motivation and whether or not it was correct. Trying to answer that made this a fascinating film.
Rating:
Summary: Ice cold movie
Review: People should quit taking advice from so-called critics who claim this movie was a masterpiece. The plot stunk and I could care less for the characters. Watch Affliction if you want a good dark artsy film. This flick was more like the Rotten Hereafter!
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: "The Sweet Hereafter" is simply put one of the best films of the 1990s. Recounting the plot doesn't begin to describe the experience. Egoyan's use of out of time sequencing makes "Pulp Fiction" seem ameturish. That is the genius of the film. Were it told in a straight time sequence, it wouldn't have nearly the power. Also effective are the visuals. Egoyan made maximum use of the film's Canadian Rockies location. Interweaving a child's fairy tale into the narrative was also very effective. Overall, an absolute must see.
Rating:
Summary: Worth a Second look on DVD
Review: I was a fan of Egoyan's film Exotica, but confess that I was a bit confused when I first watched this film on video. However, after purchasing the Platinum series DVD, I found the director's commentary to be very helpful in understanding what is going on in the film. I now realize that I was not paying enough attention to the film the first time through. And though before I may have agreed with some of the other viewer reviews which characterized this film as "dull", I now think it is more accurate to say it is sublimely subtle. In an age of big budget, loud, flashy, dumbed-down Hollywood films, even intelligent viewers may not have the patience to get into a film that relies on storytelling through nuance. However, upon a second (more illuminated) viewing I now realize how the true beauty of this film glides across the screen like a rich pageant, slowly unfolding. I urge you to take another look at the DVD version. The commentary track with Atom Egoyan and Russell Banks is full of insight.
Rating:
Summary: Deafeningly Dull
Review: While this film may suit the taste of many a cinematophile, to me it was terribly dull. The story itself was interesting enough, but the pacing was painfully slow and the cinematography was oddly "flat." The director and the screenplay failed to catch my interest at all; it was all I could do not to fast-forward through it. The film is just not suited to everyone's taste. Some like it a great deal; other people like me hated it. In fact, I think this film shares top honors for me with "Ishtar" for the Worst Film I've Ever Seen.
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