classicsoncall I have to admit, I was left baffled by the conclusion to this story with the young girl Nicole (Sarah Polley) lying about the speed of the bus when it lost control and sank into the river. I generally understood the motivations of all the other characters, and unlike a lot of reviewers for the film, it didn't strike me that attorney Mitchell Stevens (Ian Holm) was your typical ambulance chaser out to make a quick buck. I thought all the while he was attempting to arrive at some measure of justice and closure for the small town's residents. In that regard, it wasn't unusual that Billy Ansel (Bruce Greenwood) would challenge Stevens; as the bus mechanic he might have been implicated for negligent service. On the flip side, his own kids who died were on that bus, so that argument could have been summarily dismissed. The linchpin for this film in my opinion was the relationship between Nicole and her father Sam (Tom McCamus). Their scene together in the barn creeped me out to such a degree that it affected an appreciation for the rest of the story. Quite honestly, had a resulting trial revealed Sam's abhorrent sexual abuse of his daughter, he would have had a lot to account for. The constant exchange of guilty expressions between Nicole and Sam while she was giving her deposition really bothered me. By lying, Nicole took him off the hook, and maybe that's what she wanted to do. But I didn't see her as mature enough to make that decision in order to bring the town it's need for healing. As one of the crash survivors, she was entitled to her peace of mind, but coming out of the picture, she would well continue suffering both mentally and physically because of her father's abusive behavior.The film is told in non-linear fashion and starting out, it can be a little confusing. There's a parallel story of attorney Stephens' inability to deal with a daughter who's drug history and promiscuous behavior has resulted in her testing HIV positive. The background narrative of the Pied Piper poem seems to imply the method Stephens employs to get the town's residents to follow his lead into a major lawsuit. The child left behind in that story would refer to his daughter Zoe (Caerthan Banks). As a cinematic device, I don't know that it really had any impact on the narrative other than to pad out the movie. For this viewer, the entire experience felt like something of a downer with no inspiring message to ease the pain of the underlying tragedy.

tangreat-bk A slow burner that will leave you emotionally devastated by the time it ends. This reminded me a lot of Manchester by the sea. The small town, the accident, the grief. If you loved Manchester, you're surely going to love this. Or vice versa. I think. Maybe. Who knows.

Jackson Booth-Millard 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die is the book I found out about this film, it sounded like and I confirmed it as an independent film, the title obviously had some association with death, but I didn't know anything about the plot, so it would be interesting for me to try whatever. Basically a small town has been devastated by a tragic event; a school bus driven by Dolores Driscoll (Gabrielle Rose) and loaded with most of the children of the town attending the local school was driving during the snowy winter morning, when it suddenly hit an icy patch, it skids off road down the hill until it reaches the lake an crashes through the ice and sinks, drowning most victims inside. Many of the isolated village community members are mourning the deaths of their children, including Billy (Bruce Greenwood), the Walkers who lost their mentally developed and challenged son Sean (Devon Finn), and the Ottos who lost their aboriginal son Bear (Simon Baker) who was adopted. Some did survive the accident, including now wheelchair bound aspiring songstress Nicole Burnell (Sarah Polley), and Dolores, we see the accident in flashbacks while lawyer Mitchell Stevens (Sir Ian Holm) has arrived in the Canadian town wanting to take some slight advantage of the situation and get the parents of the twenty dead children to sue whatever party may be guilty for causing the incident, he will obviously represent those who agree to it. He plans to target the big companies and organisations with big amounts of money and who have some involvement with the school, most of the parents he see accept his proposal and see it as some way to get over the grieving, others are simply interested in the potential for the money, and some like Billy want nothing to do with a lawsuit. Stevens himself has demons as he suffered the death of his son and still feels grief, so he knows how the victims feel, but his son's death has also resulted in his daughter Zoe (Caerthan Banks) turning to drugs, losing respect for her father and any real relationship with him, and he knows life in the town has never been the same since this terrible event. Also starring Tom McCamus as Sam Burnell, Arsinée Khanjian as Wanda Otto, Alberta Watson as Risa Walker, Mousehunt's Maury Chaykin as Wendell Walker, Brooke Johnson as Mary Burnell, David Hemblen as Abbott Driscoll and Peter Donaldson as Schwartz. Holm gives a pretty good glum performance as the ambulance-chasing who is trying to earn but also help those in the same grief-stricken situation he is in, Greenwood gets a reasonably good amount of time on screen, and I agree that from what I remember Polley is exceptional as the survivor paralysed by the accident. I will confess that I drifted in some of the story, particularly the parts involving a lawsuit and what have you, but it was certainly interesting to see a story about how one truly tragic incident can change the dynamics and personalities of a whole town community, it has got the right amount of intensity and atmosphere to keep you watching, a worthwhile psychological drama. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Director for Atom Egoyan (Felicia's Journey) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published. Very good!

sol ***SPOILERS*** We know right from the start where the film " The Sweet Hereafter" is headed in ambulance or school bus chasing shyster lawyer Mitchell Stevens, Ian Holm, on his way to this snowy little town in British Columbia Canada. Stevens is trying to get the people involved in a fatal school bus accident to help him start a class action suite against the bus company the bus driver as well as the town, Sam Dent, in what happened there. We also see that Stevens has problems of his own in that his teenage daughter Zoe,Caerthan Banks, is heavily into the drug scene and is later in the film found to be HIV or AIDS positive because of her non-stop drug use. It soon becomes obvious that Stevens in having his life screwed up, his wife also walked out on him, wants to help others like the school bus survivors and their families more then making any money for his services. It doesn't take to long for Stevens to find out that his services are no longer needed in that by him suing everyone or every thing in sight he's in fact opening up wounds in the community that have just started to begin healing. Wounds far more hurtful then what the people in Sam Dent have already suffered which in fact they were compensated for by the school bus company and despite it not being found responsible, for any shabby work on the road and guardrail,town.At first we dislike Stevens in his obsessive attempt to get the people in town to help him with his class action suit that many don't want to pursue. But later he turns out to be a victim of his own self righteousness in seeing he's going to hurt a lot of Innocent people with his suite who suffered , by surviving, even more then the victims whom he's to represent. One of them is the school bus driver Dorloes Driscoll, Gabriella Rose, who did everything to avoid her bus from skidding into a frozen lake and now has to live with the 14 children who ended up drowning in it on her conscience. There's also 15 year old Nicole Burnell, Sarah Polley, who survived the accident but ended up like the little boy in the story of "The Pide Piper of Hamlin", a favorite of hers, crippled and prevented from entering the land of "Good & Plenty" that the piper was taking the children of Hamlin to.***SPOILERS*** Slow moving but extremely heart wrenching film that has no happy ending which in fact makes it one cut above the usual Hollywood schmaltz were used to watching about the subject matter that it presents to us. A lot like the movie released the year before in 1996 "Before and After" the film "The Sweet Hereafter" shows us how one survives a tragedy like losing a child with both dignity as well as grace instead of vengeance and self-guilt. Besides Nicole the film centers around Billy Hansel, Bruce Greenwood, the mechanic who serviced the school bus and knew that there was nothing wrong with it. Billy also lost his two children who were on the school bus that he witnessed, by driving behind it, crashing into the lake drowning them and their dozen or so classmate. For all the suffering that Billy and the rest of the people in Sam Dent went through he didn't want some shyster lawyer to make, excuse the pun, a killing off it!***MAJOR SPOILER** In the end Stevens also lost a child, his daughter Zoe, through drug abuse and realized the only thing he can do now is try to put that tragic loss behind him like Billy as well as the crippled Nicole were doing and go on with his shattered life. It was Nicole who in her trying to put an end to the lawsuit that Stevens was pushing ended the whole affair by making up a preposterous story about the event,in Nicole being a star whiteness, that had it thrown out of court. Which allowed the healing process that Stevens tried to disrupt to continue and thus make things better for her as well as Mitchell Stevens and everyone else involved.