The Sweet Hereafter

1997

Action / Drama

16
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 98% · 61 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 86% · 10K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.5/10 10 36666 36.7K

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Plot summary

A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.


Uploaded by: OTTO
August 28, 2013 at 01:19 AM

Director

Top cast

Sarah Polley as Nicole Burnell
Ian Holm as Mitchell Stevens
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
811.84 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
R
23.976 fps
1 hr 52 min
Seeds 1
1.64 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
R
23.976 fps
1 hr 52 min
Seeds 13

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Hitchcoc 10 / 10

Beautifully Presented and So Sad!

I just chanced upon this film. Having watched a film called "Before and After" with Liam Neeson and Meryl Streep (a film that doesn't work well at all), I got to see how tragedy and loss can be portrayed in a sensitive, gut wrenching way. The idea that after a terrible incident (a school bus going through the ice in a far northern clime) we can't ever recover those lost sits atop this. The lawyer, who comes to town to try to earn money for himself and get the insurance companies to shell over a settlement, has his own ghosts, a drug using daughter who may be dying of AIDS, whom he has bailed out time after time. He is a beaten man, trying to do his job when his heart is not in it. We get to meet the families of the lost and survivors and their stories echo their confusion and sadness. The driver, herself, is a model citizen, and she is at the end of each chain. This is portrayed with such subtlety and such a delicate touch that it totally involves us. This is truly an outstanding movie.

Reviewed by SnoopyStyle 6 / 10

meandering sad movie

Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm) is a lawyer struggling with his drug addicted daughter. He's trying to convince various parents to sue the town. They lost their children when the school bus driven by Dolores Driscoll (Gabrielle Rose) gets into an accident on a snow covered road. The town is the only one with deep pockets and Mitchell will say anything to get them to sue. Nicole Burnell (Sarah Polley) is a survivor who was sexually corrupted by her father.

This movie meanders a lot. There are long flashbacks of not only the bus ride and crash but also some of the life before that day. It has an ethereal dreamlike quality about it. It has the sad moody devastation. It doesn't make it a compelling watch unless seeing the saddest people in the world is fun for you.

Reviewed by Prismark10 6 / 10

Leading a march

Atom Egoyan's, The Sweet Hereafter is a film about loss and recovery. An accident involving a school bus in snowy Canadian roads has left a small town devastated which left many children dead.

The grieving parents are visited by a no win no fee lawyer, Mitchell Stevens (Ian Holm.) He is a partner in a law firm and he might be just doing his job but it seems to be without much vigour or conviction. I am not sure whether money is even a motivation for him. Stevens own daughter is a drug addict who only contacts him when she wants money for more drugs. Apart from that she hates him and he knows he has lost her.

He persuades some of the parents to file a class action lawsuit by claiming the design or construction of the bus was faulty.

The grieving parents and some of the survivors all have some secret. Did bus driver Dolores Driscoll (Gabrielle Rose) drive too fast or drive carelessly given the road conditions? Does Nicole Burnell (Sarah Polly) one of the kids paralysed below the waist might want to take revenge on her abusive father?

One of the parent, Billy (Bruce Greenwood) who was following the bus and waving at his children is against the lawsuit and wants the others to drop it.

The film does not start with the crash. It is told in non chronological order and we have several story strands. one of them is the use of 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' which draws parallels of a town suffering from the loss of its children. Maybe Stevens will lead the townsfolk out of the darkness but he is suffering as well when he recounts his struggle with his drug addict daughter to one of her old friends he meets in a plane journey.

The film is about grief, sadness and the tortuous journey to recovery. Unfortunately the film does not always flow well and although I understand why some people would want to sue for damages, I never really understood why Billy did not want to sue? Nicole is paralysed, money would be useful to her and help her.

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