Rating: 
Summary: A Spare Gem
Review: Atom Egoyan has the clearest eye of any director I have ever seen. Watching his masterpiece "The Sweet Hereafter", 1997's critical darling, is like eavesdropping on the tragic, but REAL, lives of real people. It takes the end credits to remind you you are watching a movie.Ian Holm plays Mitchell Stephens, a well-to-do lawyer drowning in despair as he witnesses his daughter succumb to drugs. When a bus accident occurs in a small Canadian town, killing several children, Stephens travels there, offering his help to the families in suing the bus manufacturer. Sarah Polley plays Nicole, a clear-voiced, sweet-natured girl who becomes paralyzed after surviving the accident. These two actors are breathtaking. Their performances are simple and graceful; you don't get a sense of acting at all. Polley contributed several songs to the soundtrack and her voice can be heard, hauntingly sweet, in the background in many scenes, a reminder of the innocence and loss playing out on screen. Enveloped in the spare Canadian winter landscape, each breath the actors take can be seen and heard. Emotions are not expressed in words so much as in expressions and eyes. The pacing is slow, yes, but it is almost as though time has stopped for these grieving people and they exist in a universe all its own, so the slowness feels appropriate. The isolation is palpable. Watch for an exquisite scene where Holm finds himself sitting next to his daughter's old best friend on an airplane. It is one of the best I have ever seen. "The Sweet Hereafter" is real. Therefore, it is not always easy to watch.
Rating: 
Summary: Editing makes or breaks a film
Review: sweet hereafter is an introspective look into the relationships between parents and children. after fourteen school children have been killed in a bus accident, a big city lawyer convinces many of the townsfolk to bring about a negligence suit against whomever is responsible. meanwhile, two years later the same lawyer has to confront his own emotions and history with his addicted daughter while meeting one of her childhood friends on an airplane. rarely does a film with so many critical characters finish successfully. in one way or another some of the characters get left by the wayside in favor of others until they all become a rambled mess the viewer is left scrambling through, growing more frustrated with each moment. but sweet hereafter actually pulls it off. four townsfolk, mitchell, mitchell's daughter, and mitchell's daugherts' childhood friends are all (in varying degrees) crucial to the story, and all are developed as well as they need be. the acting and screewriting are both very good. the viewer invariably knows each individual they encounter. considering location, it would have been hard to fail with cinematogaphy, and sweet hereafter most certainly does not. the action takes place in front of and alongside snow-capped moutneain peaks and country roads. it is a majestically beautiful landscape. still, these succeses pale in comparison to the editing. just as kevin smith's movie rely on dialogue, and american beauty relied on cinematography to pull them over fan humps, sweet hereafter uses sound and film editing. by interweaving two different time periods, and two different stories, as well as various voice overs, editing moves the film along--making it watchable. without careful attention to where and when scenes were place, this movie would have very easily failed. the same can be said for the directing. shot scales change precisely when they're meant to, actors appear comfortable and confident, and difficult subject matter is handled easily and calmly. still, the movie is not a smashing success. it is slow-moving, relying on identification with characters and trust in the director (and editor's) ultimate vision to keep the viewer interested. it is also initially a bit confusing, using too little exposition. finally, there is one (not unexplained) but underdeveloped (perhaps even undeveloped) strand of tabboo that gets too little attention paid to it. this is jarring and confusing, and a little disenchanting. still, sweet hereafter is definitly worth veiwing.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: Atom Egoyan is making the best films of a generation. He has truly brought Art to filmaking without the pretentions. From the musical score to the camera angels, the Sweet Hereafter is a stunningly beautiful masterpiece. It will leave you thinking about it long after you've turned off the TV. If you think you love movies, YOU MUST BUY THIS ONE!
Rating:
Summary: SUBTLE POWER...GREAT MOVIE
Review: The kind of movie that sinks in slowly and grows in power in the hours and days after seeing it. I first saw it on VHS, and a week later, had to rent it again. The DVD is even better, although sometimes it's best just to rely on your own impressions than let the director or author or actor turn your own impressions their way. The movie is SO rich and deals with so many issues in a compact, spare manner. And everyone is great in it, especially Ian Holm. He should have received an Oscar nomination. This is not an easy movie to watch...it bounces around in time, sometimes without you knowing it until later. It moves at a stately pace, which is suitable for the snowy locations. It doesn't have a lot of laughs (to say the least). But if you enjoy journeys into the human spirit, try this. Try EXOTICA too. WOW. By the way, if you haven't read the book, you should. It is the same story, yet told in such a different tone that it has a very different impact of its own.
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful metaphor for the Pied Piper
Review: This film utilizes a fairy tale that really explains truth and exposes the frailties of the masses. The Sweet Hereafter is a story of loyalty, grief, and forgiveness. The tragedy that life can bring can also bring with it greed eager to exploit even the most grievous of situations. The community in this film is filled with characters like any community. Yet, the film doesn't try to mock itself by creating a number of clichés that always taints a good story. I can't say that I honestly like any of the characters in this movie. Maybe, that is why I like it so much. The film doesn't try to charm the viewer. It doesn't try to formulate an answer to an unavoidable situation. It does give insight into the motivations of ridicules actions. Where most films are whip cream and jello, this film is a meal of meat and potatoes. The book from which the movie is based on is excellent. I won't compare, they are two entirely different mediums. This movie is intellectually challenging without the inaccessibility of boring art house banter.
Rating:
Summary: Atom Egoyan's beautiful tragedy! Masterful filmmaking!
Review: What can I say about "The Sweet Hereafter"? Well, without hyperbole, Canadian director Atom Egoyan has basically turned Russel Banks popular novel into one of the most touching and masterfully-crafted films ever made! This is the story of smalltown tragedy in British Columbia. Fourteen schoolchildren are killed in a freak school bus accident, and their families, friends, and neighbors, each devestated in their own way, tries to carry on with their lives. A manipulative laywer (played with stark intensity by Ian Holm) comes to the town to try to organize a class action lawsuit, but the lawyer is carrying some emotional baggage of his own, and Egoyan creates some beautiful plot "counterpoint" by weaving the townpeople's and the lawyers tragedies together. Egoyan takes what COULD have been fodder for another melodramatic Hollywood tearjerker, and turns it into a film of great depth and substance. Egoyan has a wonderfully lyrical sense of film composition, and he masterfully intermixes scenes from the present, with flashbacks to the past, and slowly unviels the the complex lives of his characters (including some even deeper tragedies than the bus accident!) Ever the innovator, Egoyan even manages to blend spoken poetry into the story, as Robert Browning's "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" is used as a powerfully symbolic conterpoint to the story we are seeing on screen. The whole cast is quite excellent, but young Canadian actress Sarah Polley (as the pivotal character of Nicole, a would-be rock singer and survivor of the bus crash) just about steals the show! I won't give away one of the film's most surprising plot-points (although some Amazon reviewers have already let the cat out of the bag), but I will just say that Polley's dazed facial expression near the end of the story is a beatiful piece of acting...and speaks volumes more than any big, convoluted Hollywood "comeuppance" scene could ever achieve! "The Sweet Hereafter" is a film that should not be missed by any film buff! I have seen this film at least five times now and I can attest that it only gets better with repeated vieweings, there is simply too much going on underneath the surface of the story to absorb all of it's issues on the first glance. This very "human" film is the complete antithesis of everything that is wrong with the current Hollywood scene, and with this emotionally gripping film, Atom Egoyan has cemented his place among the world's finest filmmakers!
Rating:
Summary: great film, but disappointing adaptation
Review: Had I not read the novel before watching this movie, I probably would have given it a higher rating. I suppose with any film adaptation from a novel, it's expected to lose some of the detail. With the novel, I enjoyed the use of four different narratives to tell the tragic story. I was a bit disappointed that the film tended to only use two narratives, which tended to give the story and characters less depth. One other thing that disturbed me is how the incestual relationship between Nicole and her father is portrayed in an immensely different way than in the novel. In the novel, the description of the relationship fuels Nicole's anger towards her dad, while the movie's portrayal of the anger never seems to be explained sufficiently. To judge the movie as a movie and not as an adaptation, it is an excellent piece of work. I thought the use of The Pied Piper of Hamelin was an excellent way to augment Nicole's narrative and to mirror the story. Some explanations for motives were left a little vague, but nonetheless, I enjoyed watching the movie, even through repeat viewings.
Rating: 
Summary: What was the director thinking???
Review: First, the things that I liked: the scenes where the bus is traveling along the road are nice and ethereal. The crash is well done, juicy and horrifying. Ian Holm was good, as well as Tom McCamus. A nice peek into small town politics, even if the movie did crawl occsionally. But the thing that drags this movie down is the inexplicable and inexcusable glorification of INCEST. How in the world can Atom Egoyan possibly justify such a sick portrayal of an act that amounts to brutal rape? An incest victim does NOT hold hands and gaze lovingly into the eyes of a perpetrator over lit candles, as Egoyan would have us believe. I'd give the movie four stars if it were not for Egoyan's irresponsible and repulsive work - but as this movie stands, it glamorizes incest and I cannot condone that.
Rating:
Summary: One of the most complex and moving pictures around!
Review: Ignore the dummy who missed the point of this film and focus on the other 30 or so positive reviews. This is a powerful and poignant film that examines loss from a realistic and original viewpoint. Even the often over used subject of incest is used in a new and complex manner. This film is spectacular and when you enjoy it go out and see the director's first film: Exotica. They are both fantastic!
Rating:
Summary: Iam Holm's Triumph
Review: This was a complete surprise for me, since I've never much cared for Atom Egoyan. But that benighted Canadian town, which seems to have a cloud permanently ansconced above it, is made so palpably and painfully real, that you feel as if you spent a week there one night. Everyone is wounded by the deaths of those school children. No one is spared, not even the ambulance-chasing lawyer who becomes an unwitting dupe for the girl who survives the accident, but who alone finds she must lie in order to bring an end to the painful proceedings. Her relationship with her father is all the more bizarre because it is presented so matter-of-factly. But Ian Holm's own torment, from a drug-addicted daughter who is always calling him from the fringes of her self-made hell, is a brilliant counterpoint to the litany of loss that Egoyan enacts. I thought the references to The Pied Piper of Hamelin were a tad repetetive, but it's a tiny flaw in an overpowering film.
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