Director: Atom Egoyan
Screenplay: Atom Egoyan, based on the novel The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks
Starring: Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, Bruce Greenwood, Maury Chaykin, Tom McCamus, Gabrielle Rose, Alberta Watson, Caerthan Banks, Arsinee Khanjian
Running Time: 112 minutes
Genre: Drama
In the small rural town of Sam Dent, British Columbia, a school bus crash kills fourteen children. Lawyer Mitchell Stevens (Holm) arrives in town to persuade the grieving townspeople to hire him to represent them in a class action lawsuit against the town and the bus company. While some people accept his offer, others are more reluctant and some overtly hostile, as the town's various dark secrets come to the surface. Meanwhile Stevens is haunted by his troubled relationship with his estranged drug-addict daughter, Zoe (Banks).
This is a deeply powerful and genuinely moving film. As with many Egoyan films, it uses an unconventional structure, moving back and forth in time, with crucial events and information revealed out of sequence. Ian Holm gives a devastating performance as the lawyer, who is revealed to be much more than just a sleazy ambulance-chaser. The heartbreaking scene where he tells a story from his daughter's childhood is possibly the best moment in Holm's distinguished career. The film has a large ensemble cast all do well, particularly Sarah Polley as troubled fifteen year old Nicole, who survives the crash but is left disabled. The tone of the film, despite it's subject matter, is more like a dark fairy tale than gritty realism, with repeated references to Robert Browning's retelling of The Pied Piper of Hamlin, and a haunting, medieval-influenced score by Mychael Danna.
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