User reviews

... of not knowing what's behind closed doors, that leads us to hope nothing other than normal is going on behind them - whatever normal is. In this case no optimism, which I don't think is normal, there's always optimism, there's always a shade of hope, whether you choose to grab hold of it or not.

You could take a bus full of school children on any given day, in any part of the world, and observe the chaos that results after an appalling accident similar to the one presented here - but few outcomes would be the same after the despair, loss, rage and anger have subsided, and nobody would suggest it was fate. It is however, a beautifully performed picture, it leaves you reflective and thoughtful about the lives of the characters, how they became who they are and what they will become as a result. I don't buy the loss as a metaphor for the loss of the nostalgic view of the childhood of yesteryear either - that metaphor should be a celebration of opportunity. I would not want to curse myself with the childhood of my parents or similarly do the same to my own children.

Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm) is a lawyer struggling with his drug addicted daughter. He's trying to convince various parents to sue the town. They lost their children when the school bus driven by Dolores Driscoll (Gabrielle Rose) gets into an accident on a snow covered road. The town is the only one with deep pockets and Mitchell will say anything to get them to sue. Nicole Burnell (Sarah Polley) is a survivor who was sexually corrupted by her father.

This movie meanders a lot. There are long flashbacks of not only the bus ride and crash but also some of the life before that day. It has an ethereal dreamlike quality about it. It has the sad moody devastation. It doesn't make it a compelling watch unless seeing the saddest people in the world is fun for you.

Lately I've been seeing just about every movie that someone recommends to me, and "the Sweet Hereafter" has been on quite a few of my friends' lists. I was excited about finally seeing the movie.

What I found was less compelling than I expected. None of the characters were really engaging, and perhaps that's the aim of the film. But I honestly can't understand how this movie could have made people cry. Who did they identify with? Ian Holm's character, whose grimacing and silence set my teeth on edge, and whose attitude toward the families of the accident victims was so entirely self-serving? Sarah Polley's character, who almost never displayed any spark of life? And even if I had begun to identify with one character or another, I would have been instantly put off by the trite lines that kept coming out of their mouths. "Let me direct your rage?" Give me a break.

Not to imply too much of a connection between the films, but if you want to feel the terror and rage surrounding a tragedy as though you were there living through it, see "Boys Don't Cry." The words that go unsaid in that film are worth much more than those voiced-over or spoken all too clearly in "the Sweet Hereafter."

The Sweet Hereafter is as tragic, sad and matter-of-fact as movies get, but it's still so very beautiful that it becomes a film that's virtually impossible to forget.

The story makes no secret of the fact what terrible tragedy will happen, right from the outset. A lesser filmmaker than Atom Egoyan would've jumped at the chance to shock the audience with the freak accident that robs the town of Sam Dent of nearly all their children, by telling the story in a linear fashion. Not Egoyan. The story is fragmented, thus enhancing the true point: This is not about the overwhelming power of loss, it is about the overwhelming power of survivor's guilt (nicely represented in Browning's poem The Pied Piper Of Hamelin, which is referred to in the movie). It's all about people who grieve not only for the ones they've lost, but also for themselves, how empty their lives have become because of their tragedies. In focussing on that point, the film refrains from manipulative sentiment (which so many others don't), and presents true and unintrusive emotion, that, in the end, despite all the terror, shines a light of hope, for the sweet hereafter is not only the peaceful afterlife, it's also the peaceful future, the continuation of life...

The performances speak for themselves. Ian Holm and Sarah Polley shine in particular, through nicely subdued and subtle acting. Polley also excels as a fantastic singer-songwriter. The songs in the movie were written and performed all by herself.

Egoyan's direction is simply masterful in its beauty, elegance and evocation.

One of the best films of the 1990s.

10 out of 10.

I re-watched The Sweet Hereafter on video last night, and am still haunted by it today. It is structured so that you know some of the basic tragic plot near the beginning. This caused my eyes to water at some of the beautiful lyrical overhead tracking shots of the school bus winding through the snow covered roads of the Pacific northwest.

The film switches between the time that the lawyer arrives in town to "help" the families receive compensation, and to days just prior to the accident. We witness a loving "hippie" couple who has adopted a beautiful Native American boy, a loving mother of a school phobic learning disabled boy, and a widower who loves his two children a great deal and sees them off to school by following them in his truck. This same widower is having an affair with the mother of the school phobic--she is unhappily married to a "pig" of a husband. Complicating matters is the father who obviously loves his teenage daughter in Lolita-like fashion.

Part of the theme of The Sweet Hereafter is similar to Magnolia--accidents do happen--perhaps no one at fault... or perhaps all the adults had some part in it without anyone being at fault, as only the innocent children were killed.

The town had changed... tragedy has taken away the town's joy and innocence. The parents are no longer open with each other, but guarded, suspicious... in deep grief.

The lawyer is little more than an ambulance chaser, attempting to profit off their tragedy. Yet, he, too is a tragic figure who has already "lost" his daughter--

He had saved her when she was a baby, yet she has now turned away from him... and his feelings are now ambivalent towards her--he is a grief-stricken, defeated father, who vascillates between wanting to talk with his daughter on his cell phone and deciding to cut her off.

The story of the Pied Piper is interweaved between various events in the movie to give greater depth to the story. There's also a great scene in the movie between the lawyer and the garage mechanic, who has lost his two children, that shows that the theme is much broader than the literal story:

"I'm telling you this because... we've all lost our children, Mr. Ansel. They're dead to us. They kill each other in the streets. They wander comatose in shopping malls. They're paralyzed in front of televisions. Something terrible has happened that's taken our children away. It's too late. They're gone."

This movie isn't for everyone. It's a serious, layered piece with a lot of melancholy. The kind of fare that film critics can love, but Academy voters will avoid. But what it strives to accomplish is done very well. And it will stay with you long after the final scenes have appeared.

When it comes to drama, The Sweet Hereafter represents the finest cinema of the decade. The film lifts the director Atom Egoyan to the highest place of Canadian directors -right next to David Cronenberg. With extraordinary intelligence, Egoyan -the maker of "Exotica"- creates labyrinths of relationships. Brilliantly using flashbacks the director reveals the emotions of the characters to the viewers -a powerful way to make the audience feel anxiety.

The Sweet Hereafter is based on a novel by Russell Banks. This doesn't mean that Egoyan hasn't created a film that looks like his own creation. Very beautifully, even with a sense of poetry, the camera moves in a canadian small-town, a scenery full of snow. The nicely unusual music of Mychael Danna creates the mood when a lawyer played by Ian Holm arrives to the town. A School bus lies under ice, and the lawyer is invited to sue someone for the loss of several children.

A very important slice of the scenario belongs to a school girl (Sarah Polley), who realizes that the grief of loss can't be eased by judging the cause of it. Also the other people of the town play a remarkable role in the script.

Egoyan speaks clearly, but with a sound of personality, about the need of love, the pain of loneliness and the crossing of emotional obstacles. Fortunately someone knows how to direct interesting movies with elements of drama in them. The Sweet Hereafter possesses a brilliant structure where the visual telling breaths in the spirit of symbolism. I'm a very demanding viewer, a true cynic who always tries to find the worst sides of the film, but in this case I can't say anything negative.

Atom Egoyan's, The Sweet Hereafter is a film about loss and recovery. An accident involving a school bus in snowy Canadian roads has left a small town devastated which left many children dead.

The grieving parents are visited by a no win no fee lawyer, Mitchell Stevens (Ian Holm.) He is a partner in a law firm and he might be just doing his job but it seems to be without much vigour or conviction. I am not sure whether money is even a motivation for him. Stevens own daughter is a drug addict who only contacts him when she wants money for more drugs. Apart from that she hates him and he knows he has lost her.

He persuades some of the parents to file a class action lawsuit by claiming the design or construction of the bus was faulty.

The grieving parents and some of the survivors all have some secret. Did bus driver Dolores Driscoll (Gabrielle Rose) drive too fast or drive carelessly given the road conditions? Does Nicole Burnell (Sarah Polly) one of the kids paralysed below the waist might want to take revenge on her abusive father?

One of the parent, Billy (Bruce Greenwood) who was following the bus and waving at his children is against the lawsuit and wants the others to drop it.

The film does not start with the crash. It is told in non chronological order and we have several story strands. one of them is the use of 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' which draws parallels of a town suffering from the loss of its children. Maybe Stevens will lead the townsfolk out of the darkness but he is suffering as well when he recounts his struggle with his drug addict daughter to one of her old friends he meets in a plane journey.

The film is about grief, sadness and the tortuous journey to recovery. Unfortunately the film does not always flow well and although I understand why some people would want to sue for damages, I never really understood why Billy did not want to sue? Nicole is paralysed, money would be useful to her and help her.

"The Sweet Hereafter" was arguably the best film of the 1990s and is one of my twenty favorite movies of all time. Everything comes together perfectly: fine characterization and acting (especially by Ian Holm), beautiful photography, and a hypnotic musical score featuring Armenian folk instruments. The mood is deeply elegiac but never maudlin or weepy. There's not a false note in the movie.

But don't worry; I'm not going to start screaming, "If you don't like this movie, you just don't understand it! Go back to your Hollywood pablum, you cretinous moron!" That's a stupid argument in any case, and especially so here. There are going to be some people -- including a few art-house fans -- who will find this movie slow and tedious. For me and many others, however, the film is a masterpiece.

10/10

Admittedly, because of all of the hype I had heard about this film, I was expecting a masterpiece. That may have had something to do with my low rating, but still, this film is solid, but not GREAT.

Describing it to you, the film seems to have it all. The performances are great, the cinematography is gorgeous, and the tone is solid. The problem? There isn't much there.

"The Sweet Hereafter could have used a little more substance. Simplicity is not necessarily a bad thing, nor is little dialogue. But here, these two qualities are matched in a way that just doesn't work.

Do I recommend it? Sure, if you wan't. I'm not going to stop you. The film is sad and moving, but it's just not as powerful as some would have you believe.

Tragedy and moral ambiguity are explored at a very elongated and deliberate pace in this tale of a small rural town coping with a colossal tragedy. This is one of those Art house films that will most likely test the patience of viewers in that it's about 45 minutes too long. At least 30 minutes could have been shaved off this film to deliver its intended purpose or message whatever it may have been.

We have scenes where we have family discussions and the dialogue is delivered in a very slow, monotone and lethargic rhythm. I'm not certain if this was Egoyan's method of directing the actors or if this is an underlying problem in the actors themselves. If this movie intends to be a realistic portrayal of people's responses to personal tragedy then we have a crucial problem. If not, then this can only serve as a morose allegory of cinema. The poetic narrations performed by the teenage survivor of the crash add a layer of content to the theme, but fail to provide any substantial meaning to the plot. Therefore it is up to us to make sense of this. The story of Hamelin's Pied Piper may have a personal significance to the character of Nicole, but doesn't resonate too well with the viewer. The plot and directing style doesn't connect us with the characters on an empathetic level. We are alienated from their internalized grief and aren't given enough time with them to experience that which i believe is completely necessary in stories of tragedy.

Ian Holm, as the morally questionable attorney, is misused as a key character here. As a morally bifurcated and broken man we may initially cast him as a villain, but later see him as a broken man trying to identify with parents of dead or degenerate children. Greed can turn into munificence if handled tactically and justly. His acting style here looks too lethargic and preachy. We wonder if he is the effective and prestigious lawyer he pretends to be. It's even questionable why he felt that turning this situation into a Civil Lawsuit was worthwhile. And a result, we are left to decide what his morality and intentions really were. What a pain. Sam Greenwood is a strong presence in the film. With his deep southern drawl and intimidating stare he can register moments of personal confrontation which inadvertently raise the motivations of the characters involved in the lawsuit. The strangest actress in this film would have to be Sarah Polley who is very monotone, deliberate and almost ghostly. Her lilting and melancholy voice seem oddly inappropriate for a girl who is dealing with what she is going through. By the twist ending we realize that she is actually more of a manipulator than a damaged girl trying to find her way through. The moment with her pallid father in the car has a comical note which grades against the seriousness of this story.

My guess is that this movie is depicting human tragedy as a new and precarious beginning where we feel vulnerable and confused. It's poetic and lugubrious. We are fed a plethora of poetic narrations and moving montages that depress and sedate our senses.

Marvelous acting, excellent photography, cinematic brilliance. Those are just a few of the words, that describe this movie. It's a shame that it did not receive the attention it should have. Not even at the Academy Awards where only Egoyan received a nomination. Titanic is not half as great as The Sweet Hereafter. So go and get it... and watch it and watch it and watch it. It'll be an unforgettable experience. Because of its subtle atmosphere it seems as silent as a silent film, but its so rich in character and story development - with great actors in the lead. Don't miss it.

It seems that my passion for Atom Egoyan peaked when The Adjuster came out, then slumped when Calendar and Exotica came out, then hit the "I'm not really seeing anything else this guy does" with The Sweet Hereafter. Oh, damn, and that was cemented with Felicia's Journey. Now, you would NEVER get me to see THAT again.. But since this title became available for me to watch again, I decided to watch it again to see if I liked it any more the second time. And I do believe I had the same reaction as from the beginning. And that is.. What happened? I mean, there is some of the quirkiness so evident in all of his films,. And the acting is always great (Egoyan IS a actor's director for sure). The main problem is nothing really HAPPENS in the movie. Although people make a big production about how wonderful this is, and you know what? I can SEE their point, and it's really quite a clever script.

I just didn't overly like it. There. So sue me. Put that 'no' in the "Was this review useful?" box. J

There aren't many films that unfold with a true grace, like a bird spreading it's wings in a beautifully restrained manner. "The Sweet Hereafter" is one of them, it is an engrossing film that doesn't rely on emotional manipulation to effect it's viewer, it tells a tale like it is, and in the end, that is exactly what makes it so good. The film studies a small Canadian town in the face of tragedy, and carefully layers a series of intertwining stories involving a handful of locals who have all been impacted by the occurence. Every character seems to have a normal life at first, but as the film progresses, it becomes clear that they do not. They are emotionally void people who all harbour secrets and lies, and as much as they want to believe what they're doing is right, deep down they know it's not. Intense emotions of guilt and grief run through them, but for unusual reasons. "The Sweet Hereafter" examines the things that surface after the wake of a tragedy, after the eminent shock and sorrow, how people's lives become so deteriorated and barren. The film skillfully uses different perspectives, places and time to explore the span of everything involved, asking why some things in the universe are out of our control, and if they happen for a reason. I was impressed with the film's meticulous structure, every frame is measured delicately to maximise it's power, and it works 100 percent of the time. From stark to striking, it's visuals work just as well as it's intellect. Ok, so Russell Bank's novel is a bit clearer, but Atom Egoyan's take on it is just as effective, if not more. Another thing that makes this film shine are it's performances, Sarah Polley and Ian Holme are both superb, both exude with a gentle sadness that genuinely convinces. In all, "The Sweet Hereafter" is a film that needs to be seen, it is a beautifully realised and haunting film that's virtually impossible to forget.

There's no denying that "The Sweet Hereafter" is a deeply sad movie, but there's something a bit too overly formal and constricted about it that prevents it from being the devastating film it might have been if director Atom Egoyan had allowed it to breathe a little more.

Ian Holm plays an attorney who coerces the residents of a small town to sue when a bus accident takes the lives of many of their young children. The film investigates an interesting topic: human beings' desperate refusal to believe that sometimes bad things just happen by accident and that there's not always someone or something to blame. But though the film is inspired by true events, it never feels like anything other than it is, which is a fictional creation full of actors playing roles. While I enjoyed the film, I never for a moment felt like it was taking place in a world grounded in reality.

Grade: A-

On the surface, this is simply the story of a small Canadian town traumatized by a school bus crash. Personal injury lawyer Ian Holm arrives on the scene in his expensive car, cellular phone at hand, ready to sign up victims for a lawsuit because, "I believe there is no such thing as an accident." But that summary really tells nothing, because this haunting tale is not about a grasping lawyer or greedy victims, but about how nothing is ever as it seems on the surface.

Director Atom Egoyan does a remarkable job with the narrative. Though at times the movie is difficult to follow because of some sequences which it is not immediately clear are flashbacks, it's worth sticking with it. The story works precisely because the chronology is chopped up to reveal the secrets each character, including the lawyer, keeps hidden, until the tragedy finally rips open the lives of everyone it touches.

Repeat viewings are definitely in order, if only because of the multiple, interwoven layers and images which are not always apparent on first viewing, and to ponder the interplay among the three strands of narrative in the movie. The movie is worthwhile, too, for Holm's portrayal of his grim, relentless character (possibly the best of his career), and Sarah Polley's remarkable performance as a kind of modern-day Greek chorus.

I will admit that I haven't been too impressed with Atom Egoyan cinema in the past. I just cannot understand why he doesn't give us a story without too many frills or excessive symbolism. Here, he tells a compelling and deeply moving story about grief, parenthood, death, and learning to live after tragedy. "The Sweet Hereafter" reminded me a lot of "Fargo" with its "ice-cap" cinematography and its eerie realism. Egoyan's film, however, is much more serious and absent in comedic relief. Ian Holm gives a powerful performance as a lawyer who hopes to offer relief to residents of a small Canadian town after many of their children are killed in a tragic bus accident. He promises to ask for no money until the case is won and those who are responsible pay for their suffering. Sarah Polley, known here in Canada for her recurring role on "Road to Avonlea," plays one of the few survivors of the crash, wanting to forget what happened and is therefore not too excited about the lawsuit. Holm also has personal reasons for wanting to defend the families, since his daughter, Zoe, is a desperate drug addict on the run. I'm truly glad that Ian Holm has finally gotten the opportunity to have a leading role in a film such as this. His acting is incomparable, subtle but affecting. I love how Egoyan is able to give us so much emotion and power in his direction, but also does not give us a great deal of info without confusing us. The film's events do jump around a bit, but there is a reason for it, which I wouldn't dare reveal. The best thing about "The Sweet Hereafter" is it knows its an art film, but restrains itself in its symbolism. It gives us a hard-cutting point, and gives it to us without faltering. The power of visual and contextual material combine to form a fascinating and thought-provoking film. Egoyan has finally found his niche. Rating: Three stars and a half.

This movie could never have been made in Hollywood. Hollywood simply does not produce works this intelligent. This movie is so intelligent, in fact, that it is remarkable that it was ever made at all, anywhere.

It is not, however, unintelligible. The entire film is told in a language well accessible to all: the language of relationships.

Besides the stunning cinematography, which transforms the very landscape into a character, there are five remarkable aspects of this film: the extraordinary storytelling technique, the use of sound, the exploration of relationships, the acting, and the way the whole film reaches in and grabs your heart, wrenches it about, and still leaves you feeling lightened and strangely refreshed at the end.

The most remarkable of these aspects is the storytelling. The plot slips backward and forward in time, like memory -- a single image here, a conversation there, an absurdity, a pang -- just as a person would remember a sequence of events -- nonsequentially. Often when directors attempt this approach we are left confused or exhausted by too much arty-ness. Not here. The film builds patiently, but not slowly, and it is impossible to lose track of the actual course of events. Although there is a certain oblique quality to the views we are granted -- we don't really know these people, and it is clear that we are outsiders observing their lives through someone else's memory glass -- there is no confusion as to what happened to whom, when -- and why, when there is a "why."

One of the reasons we do not lose track is the truly virtuoso handling of sound. All the sounds of the characters and their lives, their speech, their footsteps and other incidental sounds, as well as the strong and poignant soundtrack, weave complex scenes together with some very neat and complicated editing. A strain of speech or music overlapping from its scene of origin into another scene not only accomplishes the continuity but also increases this feeling of memory, that we are experiencing this entire period of time the way the people living in it would when looking back upon it, in random yet connected pieces, not as a single shot from beginning to end. It also underscores another strong element of the structure of the movie, the way we are made to feel the slippery, sliding aspect of the future coming up quickly and inexorably.

More than anything else, the relationships in this film are the point -- relationships between parents and children, between lovers, between community members with each other, between humans and the landscape, between a community and an outsider. The film explores not only how these relationships are, in plain and simple fact, but how they change both due to fate and due to chosen courses of action.

The relationships explored are shown in depth by several truly brilliant performances. Of particular note are the characters created by Ian Holm, Gabrielle Rose, Bruce Greenwood, Alberta Watson, and Arsinee Khanjian. Each of these characters is so real and natural and full, even put together as they are in a sort of patchwork, snippet-by-snippet fashion, it is hard to believe they are make-believe. I will never ever forget any of them, and I do hope to see a lot more of each of these actors -- especially the lesser known -- in the future.

The Sweet Hereafter is a tragedy in that it hinges on a tragic event, a bus accident which kills a number of children in a small town. This is no spoiler; the viewer discovers it very soon. Because of this central event, many people have described this film as too depressing to watch. This is simply not true. As my friend Teri so rightly put it, The Sweet Hereafter is "curiously life affirming."

Yes, the film affirms, there are things that happen to us from which we can never recover, as individuals and as a community. Yes, most lives, even some young lives, contain betrayal and disappointment and even horror. Nevertheless, the film also affirms that it is possible to survive and wish to. It also shows how it is possible to continue loving a person who has betrayed you or disappointed you, even more than once, just as it is possible to betray someone out of love without destroying the relationship. Sometimes betrayal is something you can't help, and sometimes it's something you have to do to save someone else.

Now, why this exploration leaves a certain lightness behind is something I cannot explain without spoiling the film. I will say, however, that the experience of the movie left me smiling, albeit wistfully, that I watched it more than once, and that I will watch it again.

A small town is devastated when several children are killed or injured when the school bus crashes into a frozen lake. Lawyer Ian Holm arrives and persuades as many people as he can to file a class action. He does this during a time of significant personal challenge as his drug addicted, wayward daughter and he are slipping further apart.

Tremendously subtle, well scripted and acted piece that could so easily have been achingly sad, depressing even sentimental. It is though all managed carefully and objectively reflecting how grief impacts different people in different ways, including Holm. He gives a stunning performance contributing a number of highly memorable, moving scenes, particularly relating to his daughter, both currently and when she was young. If you're in the mood for this, and it is sometimes a hard watch, you will find it most rewarding.

My girlfriend and I searched the Sundance section of our local (insert mainstream video store name here), and came about this out of nowhere, but we really weren't taken by it there, and after we watched it, we really weren't taken after it. It was just depressing and confusion all thrown around into a bus crashing accident which you really couldn't care too much about because of the HIV daughter, the paralyzed lying teen, the kooky bus driver with her stroke-victim husband (?)...it was too much to care about at times. I love the cinematography and placement of the characters throughout the film, but the overall theme was dismantled.

A very strange drama, the film has a few interesting questions about responsibility and Ian Holm and Sarah Polley do superb work with intriguing characters, however it is not a film that is likely to satisfy every taste. The ideas and performances are all undermined by the narrative structure - it juggles three (or more) different story lines, with different time periods each, all at once, which achieves no effect other than to make it harder to follow. The film also fails to resolve everything by the end. It finishes in a too open-ended manner in which it is hard to know what to feel at all, and some aspects (such as the mental condition of the protagonist) are never sufficiently explained. The film has quite a glowing reputation, and it certainly has the markings of a great film - wonderful camera movement, appropriately bleak setting, stellar cast, etc.. It is just a bit too awkward to be a film that could satisfy all tastes. Sure, it is worth checking out, but I would advise carefully before recommending it.