# Sweet Hereafter, The (1997)

### reviewed by
James Sanford

THE SWEET HEREAFTER (Fine Line Features) The key scene in "The Sweet Hereafter" includes one of the most disturbing images you're likely to see this year: a schoolbus full of children plunges over a bank, rolls out onto a frozen lake and pauses for a few seconds before the ice underneath it gives way and the bus and its passengers disappear into the frigid water below. It's a moment that will change the people of the tiny Canadian town of Sam Dent forever, as the once-insular community begins to turn upon itself with neighbor betraying neighbor in a race for justice, money and, the most elusive thing of all, peace of mind. Based on the acclaimed novel by Russell Banks, "The Sweet Hereafter" is both deeply disturbing and almost relentlessly grim, which is hardly unexpected, given the subject matter. The true surprise is director Atom Egoyan's approach to the material. In the hands of Hollywood, this might have been sensationalistic; at the very least it would have been ripe with scenes of hysterical parents and angry townsfolk. But Egoyan finds in Banks' book a fable, a story about the journey from shock to grief to renewal, "the sweet hereafter" of the title. Late in the film, Robert Browning's "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" is read as a bedtime story, and it becomes a perfect metaphor for the strange chain of events that have pulled Sam Dent apart. The man largely responsible for the dissent is Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm), a lawyer from out of town who arrives in Sam Dent hoping to put together a class-action lawsuit against the manufacturer of the bus. A seasoned pro, Stephens knows exactly the right words to say to move these small-towners to his side. "I'm here to give your anger a voice," he tells the distraught parents of one of the victims. "There's no such thing as an accident. The word doesn't mean anything to me." That's a lie, of course: To Stephens the accident means a potential financial windfall if he can win the case, which will ultimately turn largely on the testimony of Nicole (Sarah Polley), a gifted young singer who survived the crash but has been left crippled. Nicole's father Sam (Tom McCamus), with whom she's had an odd and possibly incestuous relationship, is among the most money-hungry in the community, although it's difficult to tell whether he wants compensation because of Nicole's injuries or because of her new aloofness toward him. Stephens, too, has a difficult time with his own daughter, a drug-dazed wanderer named Zoe (Caerthan Banks) who calls him frequently on his cellular phone, demanding money and attention in between lies. It is this aspect of Stephens that allows Egoyan to show us the man's secret heart and well-shrouded grief. Obviously, Stephens' quest for remuneration for the parents of Sam Dent is fueled at least partially by his realization that he has in fact lost his own child, who's become one of the living dead. The acting is mostly low-key and understated, in keeping with the film's tone. Holm and Polley are particularly moving, but Bruce Greenwood, as one of the few citizens to resist Stephens' spell, is also memorable. As in Egoyan's previous film "Exotica," the director paints this picture deliberately and somewhat abstractly, which may frustrate those who prefer to have everything spelled out and clarified. In some spots, "The Sweet Hereafter" is almost too oblique for its own good, particularly in a finale that almost seems to smack of "The X Files." But Egoyan also conjures up some powerful scenes, such as when Stephens interviews Dolores (Gabrielle Rose), the bus driver who's become a town pariah since the accident, and whose living room wall is adorned with framed photos of each of the kids on the bus, staring out at her like a gallery of little ghosts. James Sanford

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