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Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, Bruce Greenwood, David Hemblen, Gabrielle Rose ... see more see more... , Arsinée Khanjian , Alberta Watson , Maury Chaykin , Tom McCamus , Stephanie Morgenstern , Earl Pastko , Peter Donaldson , Caerthan Banks , Brooke Johnson

Atom Egoyan's haunting adaptation of the Russell Banks novel The Sweet Hereafter was the Canadian filmmaker's most successful film to date, taking home a Special Grand Jury Prize at the 1997 Cannes Fi... read more read more...lm Festival and scoring a pair of Academy Award nominations, including Best Director. Restructured to fit Egoyan's signature mosaic narrative style, the story concerns the cultural aftershocks which tear apart a small British Columbia town in the wake of a school-bus accident which leaves a number of local children dead. Ian Holm stars as Mitchell Stephens, a big-city lawyer who arrives in the interest of uniting the survivors to initiate a lawsuit; his maneuvering only drives the community further apart, reopening old wounds and jeopardizing any hopes of emotional recovery. Like so many of Egoyan's features, The Sweet Hereafter is a serious and painfully honest exploration of family grief; no character is immune from the sense of utter devastation which grips the film, not even the attorney, whose interests are in part motivated by his own remorse over the fate of his daughter, an HIV-positive drug addict. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

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9,793 ratings

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53 critics

R, 1 hr. 50 min.

Directed by: Atom Egoyan

Release Date: November 20, 1997

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DVD Release Date: May 26, 1998

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Flixster Reviews (797)

  • ceWEBrity
    August 29, 2011
    ceWEBrity
    A smart moral and sociological exploration, much more subtle than I've come to expect from Atom Egoyan, but I suppose I wanted more...it's pretty bland visually. It doesn't read low-budget by any means, but it sure as hell looks like it.
  • moonrivers
    June 18, 2011
    moonrivers
    Quiet and solemn this work by Atom Egoyan is so beautiful and moving that I found myself gasping as the roots of a small town are ripped asunder by an unfortunate accident. Must see.
  • jennifxu
    May 2, 2011
    jennifxu
    The Sweet Hereafter is exquisite. Innocent, mysterious, prescient, nervy, calm - I love the whole concept of examining a town in the aftershocks of a tragedy; it's like exposing the bone and sinew of a body and running your fingers through the skeleton that remains.
  • axadntpron
    March 29, 2011
    axadntpron
    A bittersweet little piece of film about a town consumed by the death of many of the citizen's children in a school bus accident. Egoyan's movie is pensive and beautifully paced. The chronology is divided in a way that let's past, present, and future coalesce into a solemn piece ... read moreabout the cyclical nature of human misfortune. The director doesn't want us to experience the tragedy itself and instead lets us watch from afar, just as helpless as any witness to such a calamity. The camera gently glides into every scene and around the characters in such a way that isn't partial, but possibly the only source of objectivity in a time when everyone seems to be exploiting this disaster by making it the scapegoat for all the wrongdoing in their personal lives.
    Also, rather than using this tragedy to exploit our emotions, Egoyan touches on important issues such as the decay of the community. Even in small smallest of places in which there once was a communal self sufficiency, Egoyan shows that the promise of material gain corrupts the quietest of souls. A young Sarah Polley even states in the film that, "we're citizens of a different town now", one that is living in the sweet hereafter.
    My main problem with the film seems to be the casting of Ian Holm. His character is very complex. Shrewd, but deeply broken. While I enjoy Holm as an actor, I don't feel as though he embodied all of these elements which would have made this film really land.
    None the les, It is a devastating but really beautiful film about personal tragedy and it would behoove you to spend some time with it.
  • imrealgod
    March 11, 2011
    imrealgod
    This was an unusual fare, but fortunately a pleasant one. The chemistry of different relationships is displayed excellently herein. The length of the movie is also appropriate. The metaphor applied between the movie's story and the pied piper poem is brilliant. However, I was a b... read moreit disappointed by the ending. (It was as if the filmmaker had hit the ball strongly but got caught on the boundary line.) But you can't have everything as you wish. To each, their own.

    Go, refresh "The Pied Piper" poem that you may have adored in your childhood.
  • fb619846742
    November 26, 2009
    fb619846742
    A brave and unflinching look at guilt, loss, innocence, and grief. Nearly a perfect film, thanks in large part to Ian Holm's restrained but still powerful performance as an outsider trying to help the citizens of a small town seek justice for a horrible event involving many of th... read moree town's children after a horrific school bus accident. Although one of the themes it tries to instill feels a little too forced (incest), this is a near flawless motion picture, one that should definitely be seen due to its sheer honesty and bravery concerning the innocence lost in a nice little town that is struggling to recover and cope with its aftermath.
  • bbcfloridabound
    July 2, 2009
    bbcfloridabound
    This is another film from the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival. And again like each of the other films from this festival we have a excellent film. Was inspired by the 1989 school bus crash in Alton, Texas. Directed by: Atom Egoyan. A Small town, has a tragic bus acciden... read moret, where bus driver loses control and the bus plunges into a frozen lake, with a father following his children to school, he watches the bus sink through the ice. A lawyer shows up to interview each person involved to start a law suite. Mean while his own daughter is involved with drugs. Ian Holm plays the lawyer and does an excellent job. Acting by all is outstanding. 4 Stars and a Must See, I was surprised to see it listed for under $6.00 on Amazon
  • kiriyamakazou
    May 11, 2009
    kiriyamakazou
    What could have been one of those sickly Hollywood films where a Lawyer seeks compensation for the downtrodden, is instead a harsh and unflinching critique of human nature. Holm is excellent as a lawyer that has lost his daughter to drugs and as his own kind of retribution, he tr... read moreies to "help" the families that lost their children in a bus crash. What Holm fails to realise is that he is simply stirring up anger and greed in a community he doesn't understand. We see the secret and even dark sides of these peoples lives. Nobody comes off as perfect or inspirational. Holm is decent in his actions, but flawed in his approach. Some of the parents may be seeking justice, but are eventually motivated by greed. Even one of the survivors turns the event/lawsuit into her own weapon of spite. Complex and unforgiving, The Sweet Hereafter will inspire thought and conversation. No wonder it made Premiere's "25 Most Dangerous Movies Ever" list.
  • danperry17
    March 10, 2009
    danperry17
    This is an evidently well-crafted film... so much so that I almost feel like I should spend the whole movie pointing that out and not watching it. That may in fact be Atom Egoyan's biggest downfall: he's so busy showing everyone just how brilliant he is that he doesn't really foc... read moreus on just doing something brilliant.

    Nevertheless, this is a difficult movie - growing up in a small town, I recognize a lot of these (types of) people - and is still rather good, and Ian Holm and Sarah Polley shine in it. The latter, in fact, appears to show just how much she's learned from Egoyan about film-making in her directorial debut (Away From Her). I fear the pupil has surpassed the teacher.
  • Redlats
    November 22, 2008
    Redlats
    Thought-provoking script and a very good movie. Combining the story of the devastation that is caused when most of a small town's children die in an accident and questionable relationships between two of the main characters and their daughters.

    Watch it if you can.

View All The Sweet Hereafter Reviews

Critic Reviews

Jeff Strickler
November 6, 2002
Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune

A delicate and touching story. Full Review

Brendan Kelly
February 14, 2001
Brendan Kelly, Variety

Canadian writer-director Atom Egoyan's most ambitious work to date, The Sweet Hereafter is a rich, complex meditation on the impact of a terrible tragedy on a small town. Full Review

Kenneth Turan
February 14, 2001
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Though this is Egoyan's first adaptation, The Sweet Hereafter could serve as a model for how to do it right. Full Review

Mike Clark
January 1, 2000
Mike Clark, USA Today

Audience is almost bound to be absorbed for the duration.

Janet Maslin
January 1, 2000
Janet Maslin, New York Times

In a season of expertly adapted contemporary fiction (like "L.A. Confidential" and "The Ice Storm"), this fusion of Banks's and Egoyan's sensibilities stands as a particularly inspired mix. Full Review

Peter Brunette
January 1, 2000
Peter Brunette, Film.com

a new moral urgency seems to invigorate this film

Roger Ebert
January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

This is one of the best films of the year, an unflinching lament for the human condition. Full Review

Stephanie Zacharek
January 1, 2000
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

Elegiac and yet straightforward as haiku Full Review

Richard Schickel
January 1, 2000
Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine

solemn, subtly structured, beautifully acted and ultimately hypnotic

John Hartl
January 1, 2000
John Hartl, Film.com

As in Egoyan's Exotica and The Adjuster, past and present are intricately fused by the crisp editing, the mournful shadings of Mychael Danna's score and Paul Sarossy's austere wide-screen cinematography

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    • Dolores Driscoll: I wasn't driving anymore, the bus was like this huge wave about to break over us. Bear Otto, the Lampston kids, the Hamiltons, the Prescott, the teenage boys and girls from Bartlett Hill Rd, Pete, Suzy, Laura, Rick, Sean Walker, Nocole Burnell, Billy Ansel's twins, Jessica and Mason. All the children of my town.
    • Nicole Burnell: We're all citizens of a different town now. A place with its own special rules and its own special laws. A town of people living in the sweet hereafter. Where waters gushed and fruit trees grew, and flowers put forth a fairer hue, and everything was strange and new.
    • Mitchell Stephens: Something's happening that's taking our children away.
    • Mitchell Stephens: Well, enough rage and helplessness and your love turns to something else.
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The Sweet Hereafter Trivia

  • Ian Holm played an opportunistic personal injury attorney attempting to capitalize on a horrific accident in which movie?  Answer »
  • In which Oscar-winning Canadian movie did Sir Ian Holm play an opportunistic lawyer?  Answer »
  • What British actor played a lawyer in Atom Egoyam's The Sweet Hereafter?  Answer »
  • In what film does Ian Holm's character find a small town in mourning over a bus accident?  Answer »
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