SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

two-rivers "The Sweet Hereafter" is another denomination for paradise, as it is to be enjoyed in afterlife. In the Robert Browning poem about the Pied Piper, which is read by Nicole, the only child surviving the bus accident, one of the kids is lame and cannot follow the call of the Piper. It is therefore "bereft of all the pleasant sights they see" and henceforth has to endure the dullness of life in a town that has been deprived of all playmates.The same happens to Nicole, who will be confined to a life in a wheelchair while the entire young population of the little town of Sam Dent, British Columbia, is now enjoying the pleasures of heaven. Her sadness is understandable, but it is equally plausible that it should lead to anger and the urge to revenge.It is obviously the lawyer Mitchell Stephens that provokes her indignation. He can also be seen as a kind of pied piper, but not one whose commitment leads to the entrance of paradise. His goal is the fulfillment of earthly materialistic pleasures, and therefore he tries to persuade the relatives of the deceased children to file a lawsuit against the bus company for damage. In case of success, he would also benefit from the verdict and encash one third of the allocated sum.The necessity of mourning for the bereaved ones has been substituted by sheer business matters, and the greed for money has become the new incentive. And it is Stephens who has to be blamed for that change of disposition.But there is no compensation possible for the loss of human life. Nicole understands that and makes a fateful decision. Being chosen as a chief witness and asked in a pretrial-hearing about the circumstances of the bus accident, Nicole consciously gives a false testimony accusing the bus driver of having driven at excessive speed. Now the planned trial against the bus company cannot take place, and Mitchell Stephen's materialistic dreams are shattered.Standing in clear opposition to the girl, whose desire it is to get access to heaven, that lawyer can truly be considered an advocate of hell. We get introduced to him when, right at the beginning, he is trapped in a car wash whose mechanism cannot be brought to a halt. It is here that he gets the first cellular phone call by his daughter Zoe who is equality trapped, as her drug addiction and her later-revealed AIDS infection has led her to a dead end of her life from which no deliverance route seems to be attainable.Certainly her father can do nothing to help her. When Zoe, whose name ironically means "Life", tries to contact him, we can see that her phone booth is located in a rundown area of a larger city - an image that can be seen as a metaphor for the desolation of her inner state of mind. She addresses herself to her father out of utter helplessness, and it is deplorable to see that he is unable to respond. The only thing he can do for her is to "accept the charges" for the call - another indication of a mind set only on materialistic issues but not prepared to offer the much needed spiritual help.Zoe nevertheless does make an attempt. She reminds her daddy of a childhood memory when they both were inside a car wash and she "started playing with the automatic window" - a story that, if we accept the car wash as an image for hell, reveals her strong desire of escape and thus approximates her character to the children willingly seduced by the Pied Piper.However, Mitchell Stephens is incapable of establishing a meaningful communication with his daughter - he thinks that she is merely "calling for money". It is only much later that he comes to a heart-breaking insight. When accidentally meeting a former childhood friend of Zoe on an airplane, he recalls another memory from the past, this time when his then three-year-old daughter nearly died from a spider bite. Although he does not clearly reveal it, the spectator senses that Zoe has now finally succumbed to her drug addiction - and therefore become just another victim of the Pied Piper's power of attraction.

imbluzclooby 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.

petra_ste In most movies the use of nonlinear narrative is a gimmick. I can think of a few exceptions, like Pulp Fiction and Memento, where it feels elegant and organic; Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter is one of them.Although structure is complex, the premise is simple: a horrific tragedy shakes a small town when the school bus falls into a lake, killing fourteen children. City lawyer Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm) attempts to persuade the victims' families to file a class action; a key witness is fifteen-years-old survivor Nicole (Sarah Polley), paraplegic after the crash.Napoleon, Hobbit, android - you name the part, Holm can play it; this is my favorite performance of his. Stephens, a veteran ambulance chaser, pursues the case because he smells money, but he is also haunted by his own personal tragedy, a drug addict daughter spiraling into self-destruction. When he tells grieving father Ansel (Bruce Greenwood) "Something's happening that's taking our children away", he is not entirely sincere, but it's not completely a pose either.Polley is fine in the tricky role of Nicole, which runs the whole gamut of emotions from exploited frailty to calculating revenge.Thematically, the movie references the tale of the Pied Piper, which Nicole reads to the twins. There are multiple Piper-like figures: Dolores, the driver who literally leads the children to their doom (the long shot of the bus plunging into the frozen lake is uncanny); Stephens, who emotionally manipulates the families into a legal action; and the truly loathsome one, Nicole's incestuous father. Ansel is the foil to three Pipers (he impotently witnesses the accident, opposes the legal action and represents a positive father figure); Nicole is the "lame child" left behind, whose final choice marks her passage from passive victim to active agent.8,5/10

Salar Pashtoonyar The Sweet Hereafter is 1997 Canadian drama movie based on a novel by Russell Banks of the same name. The screen play is written and directed by critically acclaimed director Atom Egoyon . The Film stars Ian Holm, Sarah Polly, Bruce Greenwood, AlbertaWatson, Simon Baker, Marc Donato, Broke Johnson, Maury Chaykin, Stephanie Morgenstern, Carthain Banks, Tom MeCamus, Russell Banks (cameo) and Gabrielle Rose. The Sweet Hereafter tells the story of a horrible school bus crashing accident that killed numerous local children. Their shattered and grieving parents are approached by a lawyer Mitchell Stevens (Ian Holm) who is hunted by the problems of his own, he wants them to file a class action lawsuit to sue for the damages by claiming the bus was faulty. Some of the parents at first are unwilling but they are persuaded by Mitchel Stevens that suing for damages is the right thing to do, some parents shows interest only because of the big settlement and some parents just want justice to be done.As most of the children are dead the case mainly depends only on 3 people that witnessed the accident, the bus driver Dolores Driscoll (Gabrielle Rose), Nicole Burnell (Sarah Polly) who was sitting at the front of the bus and who is now paralyzed below the waist because of the bus crashing accident and Billy (Bruce Greenwood) who was following the bus. Dolores Driscoll is willing to help to prove it wasn't her fault, Nicole Burnell is reluctant at first but agrees to help only on a condition that she wouldn't lie but Billy who lost 2 kids in the accident is against the lawsuit and tries to convince other parents to drop the lawsuit but nobody listens to him and tells him to stay out of it. In the pretrial deposition, Nicole Burnell lies and accuses the bus driver Dolores Driscoll of over speeding and thus causing the accident. After doing so all the hopes of suing the bus company with the possibility of big settlement disappears. The intention behind Nicole's lie is to punish her father who was sexually abusing her before the crash. Everybody that suffered from the accident or those who are involved in the case knows that Nicole is lying but nothing can be done and the trial never takes place.The story of the movie unfolds in non chronological order it jumps back and forth from one plot to another many times and loses the momentum. At first it was OK but after a while it was hard to watch because it never focused on the main story. In start we are introduced to several characters and each character has a story of its own. There are many different events besides the crash, which distracts the attention from the main plot. Mitchell Stevens daughter Zoe is a drug addict and she hates her father but its never explained what she hates him for also by the end of the movie Zoe tests positive for a blood test and its not explained what the test was for aids, pregnancy or something else. Also Zoe at first is shown as a homeless druggie but by the end she is well dressed. Billy has an affair with Risa (Alberta Watson) who is married to Windol (Maury Chaykin) but its never told why Risa is cheating on Windol or why can't she just leave him if she doesn't love him. Billy has also lost 2 kids in the accident but he is against the lawsuit because he knows it was just an accident and according to him it's wrong to sue for the damages but isn't it wrong to have an affair with a married woman? In the start of the movie its shown that Nicole loves her father (Sam MeCamus) and that they have a nice father daughter relationship but halfway its shown that Nicole is sexually abused by her father and by the end of the movie its shown that she hates him and therefor in order to punish him she lies and accuses an innocent person for the bus crash. Dolores Driscoll is held responsible for the accident because of over speeding but at the end of the movie she is back to driving some kind of airport passenger bus, how can she be hired just after two years for driving again when she is held responsible for the bus crash. Even the movie poster is taken from a scene that has nothing to do with the main plot of the movie.Ian Holm as Mitchel Stevens is a bit over dramatic at times but overall he plays the character nicely. Sarah Polly as Nicole Burnell does justice to her character and changes her facial expressions from a sweet to a serious bitter teen. Bruce Greenwood as Billy is convening, apart from Ion Holm, Sarah Polly and Bruce Greenwood all other actors are flat and plain and no one seems to be convincing enough in their respective characters.Atom Egoyon screenplay is too weak and confusing, he fails in directing The Sweet hereafter, he doesn't uses the right tone and right timing to introduce the characters and unfolds the story in non chronological order which only confuses the audience with all those subplots, The only good thing about his directing is choosing the beautiful locations for shoot. Cinematography is beautifully done by Paul Sarossy.Almost all of the main characters have a story, which is never explained, their personal stories are never given the depth they needed. I hardly see any place for those untold personal stories in the movie but they are introduced which drags the attention from the main plot and half way through the movie I didn't care for the accident and just wanted the movie to finish.