Product Description

FOLLOWING A TRAGIC SCHOOLBUS ACCIDENT, HIGH-PROFILE LAWYER MITCHELL STEPHENS DESCENDS UPON A SMALL TOWN, WITH PROMISES OF RETRIBUTION AND A CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT FILED ON BEHALF OF THE COMMUNITY. BUT AS HIS INVESTIGATION INTO THE QUIET TOWN BEGINS, HE UNCOVERS A TANGLED WEB OF LIES, DECEIT AND FORBIDDEN DESIRES.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22280 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 1998-05-27
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 112 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
In synopsis The Sweet Hereafter may sound like a devastatingly unpleasant downer, but don't be discouraged. The real subjects of this luminous picture (adapted by director Atom Egoyan from Russell Banks's novel) are hope and renewal--avoiding the cheap emotions suggested by those clichéd terms. Like other Egoyan films (Exotica, for one), it's an intriguing sort of mystery, a puzzle in which the big picture is not revealed until the very last piece is in place. A metropolitan attorney (Ian Holm) travels to a small British Columbian town where 14 children have been killed in a school bus accident to prepare a class-action suit. With sensitivity and empathy, he approaches relatives with promises that the suit will give focus and closure to their grief. And as he investigates the circumstances of the accident, he not only uncovers a few local secrets, but dredges up some painful pieces of his own past. Slowly, deeper mysteries are revealed--eternal mysteries at the very heart of human nature: Who is to blame for a tragedy like this? And why do people feel such a need to assign blame? Is that how they give meaning to otherwise inconceivable events? How does one reassemble a shattered life? The Sweet Hereafter is too honest to offer bromides, but it shows how a few people struggle, as best they can, to answer these questions for themselves. DVD extras include audio commentary by Egoyan and Banks, a Charlie Rose interview with Egoyan, and a panel discussion with the filmmakers. --Jim Emerson

Customer Reviews

A Film to Ponder, but Far from Ponderous
I can't fathom anyone watching this movie through without being deeply moved, at times disturbed, and shaken to some degree. It really does delve down into the dark night of the soul, like the cinematic equivalent of a Sylvia Plath poem. It's a film about loss. Innocence lost, the questionability of ideals and motives. The end of childhood. Yet Egoyan doesn't deliver a totally bleak jeremiad here, either. Human beings are flawed, but they also are capable of growth and wisdom, though both are hard earned.

As usual with Egoyan films, nature is at a distance and a remove from human beings and the turmoil brimming over inside them. The beautiful BC vistas are in contrast to the tragic event that occurs. It's a bit like the end of Moby Dick, when the Pequod is smashed and sinks, while the sun smiles down serenely on the calm sea. I think Egoyan's getting at the same thing Melville is, as well. It's an existentialist's way of looking at the universe. If we're looking for a higher power to bail us out, we're out of luck. Our other moral constructs are pretty shaky, as well. We tend to think a little better of ourselves than is often the case.

As is also usual, Egoyan assembles an excellent cast, that feed off of each other's honest performances. No wrong notes here. Cinematography also up to the usual high standard. My appreciation for Egoyan's work increases with each new film I see. Personal thanks to the reviewer who led me to the works of this auteur director, in the best sense of that term.

BEK

The Wheels on the Bus
If you have children, plan to have children, or know of any children living in your area seek this movie out. From it's haunting opening music, to its somber, yet life affirming tone, The Sweet Hereafter is one helluva soul jerkin' drama.

It gives you a gut punch/ sucker punch combo all the way through, a harrowing study of the reverberations and impact of an instant.

Sarah Polley is an otherworldly talent, portraying a child possessing creepy wisdom and the voice of a dew eyed angel.

People still talk about this film today, because it entrenches itself into the minds of viewers with a conscience. Quite possibly one of the saddest, smartest, and touching films I've ever seen.

The soundtrack is mesmerizing, you will feel compelled to purchase it.

P.S. If this movie doesn't get to you in some way your heart is but a cinder.

Incest
I'm sorry to disagree with everyone but this movie, this story, is about the impotence of incest. The fantasy of a school bus accident that takes the lives of all the children is a metaphor of collateral damage suffered by the innocent.

The lawyer (Holm) represents our image of the profession's lowest: an ambulance chaser. Simultaneously, he is a dedicated father, out of sync with his professional role. Early in his life, he suffered his own impotence: A gripping fear of being unable to save his daughter. Wrenched into the role of God, he was prepared to perform the invasive procedure she might need enroute to the hospital, and the trauma of the memory lingers in the form of addiction's continuous relapse and finally, AIDS.

Holm stirs the dragon inside the grieving parents. He insists the class action suit is about "anger, not grief." He wants them to join together and punish whoever's responsible. This call to arms is sounded throughout the story and is unmistakably the author's method of reminding us that incest produces victims and is not an innocent expression of love.

Polley finds a way to punish her father despite intimating that she'd tell his nasty little secret. Holm asks her if she'll testify and she says, "...If I testify, I'll tell the truth about everything." Does she? No. She lies during the deposition because in so doing, her father loses any chance of collecting from the insurance company, bus manufacturer, etc.. Holm compliments her on her poker face. Looking straight at her father she quite evenly says "thank you."

The image that remains is one of her father carrying her from the car to a distant wheelchair, struggling under her weight, and repainting the wheelchair ramp from a dull green to a brilliant red simply because he thinks it will make all the difference in the world.