Rating: 
Summary: "You leave the people of this town alone!"
Review: Atom Egoyan's "The Sweet Hereafter," is a film I wish I could like more. I had heard so many wonderful things about the film that I eagerly awaited my opportunity to view it for myself. Strangely enough, my local video store never bothered to stock it which looking back now might have been an omen of things to come. I finally did track down a copy to rent in due time and, I'm sad to report, was left with a sense of disappointment when the film ended."The Sweet Hereafter" opens with twin tragedies. In a small Canadian town, a school bus accident has occurred which has left 14 children dead. Miles away, a lawyer who would become involved in the bus accident receives a phone call from his estranged daughter. She tells him she is dying. The lawyer's name is Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm) and he tracks down the parents who lost children in the accident hoping to file a class action lawsuit against the bus company. Stephens is driven to represent the townspeople partly because that is what he does in life and partly to distract him from the situation with his daughter. The town becomes divided over whether to pursue the lawsuit. Eventually, everything comes down to the testimony of one of the accident's survivors. Her name is Nicole (Sarah Polley) and what she says ensures that there will be no winners. Egoyan's film is as much a commentary on survivor's guilt as it is about the dark secrets a town can hold even though everything appears proper on the outside. It is a film about heartbreak and facades and how life can be so unfair. Yet, the film feels distant. While the various story arcs are well-defined and acted, I found it difficult to become immersed in the world I was watching. The film felt too muted and devoid of an emotional spark. While the hardships experienced by the characters in the film made for emotional drama, the film itself was less successful in generating strong emotional responses. The only instance where a truly-wrenching feeling swelled up in me was toward the end when the driver of the ill-fated bus is painfully reminded of the accident through a chance encounter. It may be that an Atom Egoyan film is an acquired taste that I unfortunately have not developed. Yet, I will give credit where credit is due by saying that Ian Holm and Sarah Polley should have received more recognition for their star turns. Watching Polly in particular makes one wonder why she is not currently being offered more high-profile work. Her performance here and in Doug Liman's "Go" (1999) have been flawless. Here's hoping that Hollywood will see fit to make more productive use of her talents.
Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent Movie
Review: I would highly recommend this movie--the script, the direction and cinematography, and the acting are all excellent. The story is told in non-linear fashion, jumping backwards and forwards in time, but is very carefully handled and is not disorienting at all, and adds to the tension as the story unfolds. It's a very haunting and thoughtful film and not as depressing as you might think from the plot summary. It also doesn't have the usual Big Hollywood plot predictability. For example, it was nice to see a trial lawyer not being portrayed as the Saviour of Mankind for a change. It was also nice to see the central event, the school bus crash, not handled in the usual flaming gore fashion, which would have ruined this movie. The DVD extras include a running commentary on the film by Atom Egoyan and Russell Banks (the author of the book), which was not as interesting as I had hoped. There was a bit too much tedious art-school prattle and it got a bit boring; it wasn't nearly as interesting as, say, a John Sayles commentary on one of his films. Amusingly, there's also a scanned copy of the Robert Browning version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin story, so you can remind yourself of what *real* children's literature is like. Strongly recommended -- I'd give it five stars, but I'm a hard grader.
Rating: 
Summary: What great films are supposed to be
Review: The title of my review says it all: this is a GREAT film. The performances allow for this slightly complex story, though not too complex, to soar. To hell with the big budget pieces of crap like Titanic or Independence Day or... well, there are too many to mention, but I hope you get the point. This is a truly wonderful film with truly inspired performances. Everyone should see this film.
Rating:
Summary: Moral courage
Review: Masterpiece. No question. This is one of the most brilliant cinematic dramas of the 1990s, if not of the last twenty years. Atom Egoyan will be remembered for several of his films, but this is the one that everyone will talk about for years to come. The interwoven themes of loss, hope, grief and redemption are so artfully fused as to defy belief. The use of time shifts is integral in this fusion and it is done so skillfully that it is close to impossible to think of another film that betters that technique. The story of a devastating tragedy that has killed a number of school children in a bus accident, it also focuses on Mitchell Stevens, the lawyer who has come to the small Canadian town where the accident occurred to assist the grieving parents of the dead children in reclaiming what may be due them financially based on negligence causing the accident. Yet Stevens has his own agenda, and it is an equally powerful one--the spiritual and physical decay of his daughter, lost to drugs. Not lost as in dead, but lost as in addicted, beyond help. Were this only a tale of tragedy, it would have nowhere near the impact that it does. It is much more than that. It is about what we all can see, if we look hard enough, in our lives that gives us the strength to move beyond what can bring us down. It is about how we can live past and through the times that shatter our existence. Were this a tale only of the vices that surface here--incest, adultery, lying, pride--it would be an all-too-familiar grocery list of man's sins. But it is the context in which these sins occur--how the sinners and those sinned against cope with them--that gives this film its astounding power. Now, more than ever, this is a drama that speaks to all of us, and while that may sound cliched, it is nevertheless true. This is a tale of moral courage--of those who have it, of those who struggle for it, and of those who have lost it. This is the quality that makes us, more than anything else, what we are. And what we can be. If I could give this ten stars, I would. It's that good.
Rating:
Summary: stunningly beautiful
Review: the sweet hereafter is incredible. the acting is superb. both ian holm and sarah polley make their characters seem more than the usual one dimensional charicatures that inhabit most movies made in the past ten years. the directing by atom egoyan is absolutely breathtaking. the depth and breadth this movie covers is quite amazing. simply the best movie i've ever seen.
Rating:
Summary: egoyan, the master juggler
Review: atom egoyan's "the sweet hereafter" justly deserves to be regarded as the archetype for what a film adaptation of a novel should be. it is a work that simply borrows the basic elements of a well-regarded piece of literature -- the characters, the setting, the unfolding drama -- and then drastically reshapes those elements so that they are aligned to the natural fluidity and three-dimensional resonance of cinema. egoyan is one of the truly great filmmakers in that he is not afraid to rigorously deconstruct a written work to bend to the demands of a purely visual medium. "the sweet hereafter" not only juggles the various lives of a small rural town that is coping with the unimaginable loss of its small children, but it juggles with the past, the present, and the future of these lives as well. the end result is a deeply felt, challenging film that initially may confound even the most discerning viewer, but is generous enough to quickly allow that viewer to slide into the fold of its unique narrative approach. indeed, egoyan proves so adept at balancing these multiple time frames and characters that we eventually find ourselves completely in harmony with the film. it is much like reading a work by virginia woolf: you are initially all too aware of the stream of consciousness narrative, which seems foreign and jarring; but soon enough, you find yourself floating WITH the waves rather than on top of them. it is then that you become lost in these various characters' lives, in their dark secrets and quiet longings, in their shared pain. it is then that you become amazed at the reserve strength that a few of them tap into when they least expect it, and which allows them to heal and find some level of peace living in the sweet hereafter.
Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking and honest
Review: Egoyan's Exotica is one of my all-time favorites, so I was eager to see The Sweet Hereafter. On my first viewing I was disappointed, thinking that the incestuous relationship near the center of the movie was gratuitous, and that the movie wasn't focused sufficiently to match the heartbreak at the core of Exotica. I've changed my mind. This is still my second-favorite Egoyan movie (the adjustor and calender are failures for me), but is one of my top-20 all-time. Ian Holm is complex and intriguing in his role as a failed-father and lawyer come to do "justice" in a small town reeling from the loss of many of its children in a tragic accident. Holm's conflicted and tragic relationship with his daughter, Bruce Greenwood's honest repulsion at the finger-pointing that will result from litigation, and Sarah Polley's teenage struggle to deal with the duplicity of adults and their failure to provide a moral compass for the youth of the town ground this story and make up for the few weaknesses within. I'm coming to think of this as a small masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: A MULTI-FACETED GEM OF A FILM...
Review: This film is compelling in its storytelling, peeling back layer after layer of human emotion, until all that is left is that which is primal. Beautifully nuanced, if somewhat ponderously slow at times, this film is not for the action oriented viewer. It is a film for the more patient and discerning viewer, the one who will allow the story to unfold in its own good time. It is this viewer who will derive the most enjoyment from this cinematic gem. The story is really several stories that are threaded into one tapestry of events. The main thread involves a school bus accident that resulted in the death of fourteen children in a small British Columia town in Canada. A big, city slicker lawyer, Mitchell Stevens (Ian Holm), waltzes into town on the heels of the tragedy to see if a class action suit, arising out of the bus accident, lies against someone, anyone for huge monetary damages. As Stevens interviews those prospective clients, his own troubles are revealed to the viewer and center around his drug addicted daughter, who deftly manipulates him. Scenes with his daughter, which suggest just how out of control his daughter's life is, correlate nicely to the way the lives of the townspeople have spun out of control since the bus accident that took so many young lives. Stevens is as bereft as the townspeople who have lost their children. The lawyer's feeling of guilt over his daughter's seemingly hopeless condition, miirror the hopelessness felt by the townspeople in light of the overwhelming tragedy that has befallen them. The town has its secrets, however. One of them involves an attractive, and talented teenager, Nichole (Sarah Polley). When the viewer first sees her, with her is a long haired, seemingly supportive and tender man. For some inexplicable reason the viewer may take him for her boyfriend, even though all they are doing is eating ice cream, only to discover that he is actually her father. Like the lawyer, Nichole must contend with a very personal and secret tragedy in her young life. The brief scene that makes clear the true nature of Nichole's relationship with her father is shown in a way that belies its inherent corruption. It seemlessly transitions its way into the film, and the viewer really has to think twice about that which the viewer has just seen, as the setting seems almost romantic, a setting that belies the profound putrescence of the reality of the scene.
The threads of the film's story are woven in such a way that time and scene shifts are somewhat abrupt and may seem a little disjointed to the viewer, which has the net effect of keeping the viewer a little off balance. The tenor of the film, however, is set to perfection by Nichole's monotone voice over reading of Robert Browning's lyrical poem, "The Pied Piper of Hamlin". Her reading gives the viewer a feeling of alienation and despair. It also leaves the viewer wondering whether the pied piper is an allusion to her father or the lawyer. Watch the film, and you be the judge. Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, and this cast of mostly unknowns, give wonderful performances worthy of note, compelling and moving. The film, as does an onion, has many layers to be peeled back. It is a film to be savored and viewed again and again. "The Sweet Hereafter" is sweet, indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Sad but unforgettable
Review: This is about ordinary people blindsided by a disaster affecting an entire rural British Columbian town. Thy've have just lost 14 of their children in the crash of their school bus which we see in surreal fashion as we're spard the chaos that must hav ben occurring inside. The families are visited by Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm), a lawyer who is attracted to the case because of his ongoing suffering due to a daughter addicted to drugs who calls him collect on his cell phone frequently. He'd like to channel the townspeople's and his rage with a class-action lawsuit. He is the classic outsider offering a form of salvation whether they want it or not. His interviews with the families and survivors open up windows into some of the town's relationships and screts that many would like to stay hidden. The most significant schoolbus survivor is Nicole, a teenager now crippled for life. In this movie we see the contrast between the horror of the accident and the average lives of its victims. Mitchell wins the confidence of most of the townspeople as he builds his lawsuit, pumping himself up to win their cooperation, only to sag under the weight of his own personal sadness whenever he leaves them.
This troubled lawyer builds his case. "There is no such thing as an accident; somewhere, someone decided to cut a corner," he rails. Blaming the town, the bus company, and the school board, Stephens presents himself as the one person who knows what is best for the families. When he says, "I will sue for negligence until they bleed," his own rage is leaking from his heart. When he adds, "Let me direct your rage," his own rage is joining a class action looking for an outlet. Ian Holm, as always, plays in subtle tones, and toys repeatedly with the unexpected. He is marvelously incapable of creating a stereotypical lawyer. There is no sentimentality to this movie, a real feat considering the subject. Atom Egoyan was after something much deeper, a sense of community, perhaps, or the dreariness of the ordinary. His characters are outsiders moving about the edges of their community. None of them is especially likeable. A viewer looking for engagement with these people is likely to be disappointed; but it is precisely that quality that allows us to think dispassionately about loss and resilience, about moments of bravery summoned from mediocrity. Whenever you think of loss from now on, it's a safe bet that Atom Egoyan's horrific, silent vision of the yellow school bus skidding on the frozen lake will haunt your thoughts.
Rating:
Summary: sweet hereafter
Review: The Sweet Hereafter is a film that is truly original and rightfully won the Grand Prix and International Film Critics Prize at Cannes, which is probably more important than the Director Oscar nomination, because of Cannes' non political approach to selecting it's winners . It's ideas of tragedy and loss are familiar, but the way in which Egoyan deals with the story is unlike any other. The film is about a tragedy (a school bus accident) that falls upon a small Canadian town in B.C. First of all, Egoyan manages to capture small town life perfectly. He shows the various community members as being individual people, rather than just painting a broad stroke of locals from the boonies. The story is taken from Russel Banks' novel, who also wrote Affliction. There are some significant changes to the book. Ian Holm, a lawyer, has been made into the center point of the story. Egoyan has integrated the story of the Pied Piper into the story as well. Sarah Polley, a survivor of the accident, whose character in the book is full of anger directed towards her sexually abusive father, has a different perspective in the film. Also, there is a very quick scene of incest between the two that seems to be consensual on both parties, an image that caused some controversy when the film was first released. The ending of the book also featured a sort of cathartic crash derby that has been compltely removed - a welcome change seeing as how it would be difficult to keep it in the film without altering the overall feel. Ian Holm is a lawyer who isn't even an ambulance chaser because he doesnt have the energy. He comes to the town to try and represent families who have lost their children and try to bring any sort of suit that would award them damages. He, like the families also lost one of his children - his daughter. Except she isn't physically dead. Her brain may be because she's a drug addict, and Holm's relationship with her provides an interesting subplot that shows the anguish he must feel (although he keeps his emotions hidden from his face) dealing with a case so close to him. Holm's investigation focuses on Sarah Polley, a girl who was crippled by the crash, but not killed. He needs her to testify to bring more leverage to his case. Her father Tom McCamus seems to be a good man from the images we see of he and his daughter at a fair and helping her with her music, although the scene in the hayloft(?) suggests otherwise. Bruce Greenwood plays a man who has lost his two children. He allowed Polley to babysit them prior to their death. He is the man who is opposed to Holm' efforts and demonstrates this perfectly when he visits Polley's parents one evening, and when he confronts Holm at the site where the destroyed bus has been taken. Gabrielle Rose plays the bus driver and is very effective. We can see how much the kids meant to her, how she thought of them as her own, this also makes the concluding testimony particularly relevant to her. The entire film is summed up at the end when she and Holm meet eyes. Egoyan has kept the interwoven timelines of the book, that may be confusing for viewers who don't pay attention, and made them so that the story never loses its atmosphere. He also demonstrates his already obvious maturity, by not exploting the crash itself. He doesn't have sounds of scraping metal or images of bloody children or close ups to shock the viewer. He placidly shows the bus disappear into the icy waters from a fair distance back, also from the point of view of the sole witness of the actual crash. The film is shot beautifully. It captures the wintry climate to a spectacular degree. There are aerial shots that show the openness of the white landscape. The music is sort of tribal with The Tragically Hip's song Courage the main theme. The film has a measured pace which allows us to fully feel a scene before it jumps to the next. The acting is superb and understated.
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