★★★★☆ Throughout his early career, Canadian independent filmmaker Atom Egoyan repeatedly zeroed in on the effects of loss upon those left behind. This theme received its most pronounced treatment in his most critically heralded piece, The Sweet Hereafter (1997), which now arrives on DVD and Blu-ray from UK distributors Artificial Eye. Starring Brit Ian Holm, Bruce Greenwood and Sarah Polley, and based on a novel by Russell Banks, it is the thoughtful exploration of an isolated community during the aftermath of a tragic school bus accident that tears a whole class of children from their devastated families.
Arriving in this snowy township is ambulance-chasing lawyer Mitchell Stevens (Holm) who is there to urge a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the mourning parents. He visits them in turn and slowly begins to convince them to support his legal campaign which all ultimately rests on the deposition of wheelchair-bound teenage survivor Nicole (Polley). This...
Arriving in this snowy township is ambulance-chasing lawyer Mitchell Stevens (Holm) who is there to urge a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the mourning parents. He visits them in turn and slowly begins to convince them to support his legal campaign which all ultimately rests on the deposition of wheelchair-bound teenage survivor Nicole (Polley). This...
- 9/10/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
The Sweet Hereafter (1997) Direction: Atom Egoyan Cast: Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, Bruce Greenwood, Tom McCamus, Gabrielle Rose, Alberta Watson, Caerthan Banks, Maury Chaykin Screenplay: Atom Egoyan; from Russell Banks' novel Oscar Movies Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, The Sweet Hereafter By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica: Some films are well crafted but lifeless. Others err by believing they can too readily make an audience care for a character just by having a traumatic situation beset him early on. Director and screenwriter Atom Egoyan's 1997 drama The Sweet Hereafter suffers from both maladies. Though not a bad film, it certainly isn't a great film, either — much less "the best film of the year" as Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan claimed. Foremost among the film's flaws is Egoyan's disoriented narrative based on Russell Banks' novel of the same name. Since I’ve not read the book, I don't know to...
- 3/29/2011
- by Dan Schneider
- Alt Film Guide
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