The Sweet Hereafter (1997)

Director:

Atom Egoyan

Writers:

Russell Banks (novel)
Atom Egoyan (screenplay)

Release Date:

21 November 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

There is no such thing as the simple truth.

Plot:

This film documents the effects of a tragic bus accident on the population of a small town.

Plot Keywords:

Bus | Children | Community | School | Lawyer

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 29 wins & 20 nominations

Cast

Ian Holm	...	Mitchell Stevens
Caerthan Banks	...	Zoe Stevens
Sarah Polley	...	Nicole Burnell
Tom McCamus	...	Sam Burnell
Gabrielle Rose	...	Dolores Discolt
Alberta Watson	...	Risa
Maury Chaykin	...	Wendell
Stephanie Morgenstern	...	Allison
Kirsten Kieferle	...	Stewardess
Arsinée Khanjian	...	Wanda
Earl Pastko	...	Hartley
Simon Baker	...	Bear
David Hemblen	...	Abbott
Bruce Greenwood	...	Billy
Sarah Rosen Fruitman	...	Jessica

Also Known As:

De beaux lendemains (Canada: French title)
Baska bir dünya (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Das süße Jenseits (Germany) [de]
De beaux lendemains (France) [fr]
Den søte ettertid (Norway) [no]
El dulce porvenir (Spain) [es]
Il dolce domani (Italy) [it]
Ljuva morgondag (Sweden) [sv]
O Doce Amanhã (Brazil) [pt]
O Futuro Radioso (Portugal) [pt]
Slodkie jutro (Poland) [pl]
Suloinen ikuisuus (Finland) [fi]

MPAA:

Rated R for sexuality and some language.

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Hong Kong:IIB | Iceland:12 | Singapore:NC-16 | South Africa:13LS | New Zealand:M | USA:TV-MA (cable rating) | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Brazil:16 | Canada:14A | Chile:18 | Germany:12 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:R(A) | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:16 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Merritt, British Columbia, Canada

Company:

Alliance Communications Corporation

Trivia:

Was inspired by the 1989 school bus crash in Alton, Texas.

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Stephens visits the Ottos, and Mr. Otto offers him some tea, we hear a teakettle whistling but the one we see on the cooker is not the whistling type.

Quotes:

Nicole: As you see her, two years later, I wonder if you realize something. I wonder if you understand that all of us - Dolores, me, the children who survived, the children who didn't - that 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.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Making of 'Ararat' (2003) (V)

Soundtrack:

Boy

Bus Plunge

Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter is a drama of loss and internal conflict within and among the people of small town which has lost its children to a winter bus crash. The central figure is Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm), a lawyer who comes to the town in the hope of putting together a lawsuit on behalf of the surviving families.

Egoyan drags bitter and emotional performances out of his excellent cast, and managed to make me fall in love with a group of characters who, on the surface, are less than appealing. Every major character in his adaptation of Russel Banks' novel is morally bifurcated and riven with doubt.

Particularly interesting from a social perspective is the treatment of Stephens' mission. I thought the lawyer's efforts to put together his suit were played even-handedly, somewhere between the greed of an ambulance-chaser cynically exploiting a local tragedy and the difficult but necessary effort to use a flawed legal system to achieve a kind of justice. But the friends who saw it with me saw Stephens strictly as a "slimeball," placed there to test and tempt the struggling townspeople. If that's the impression that most viewers get, then I'm disappointed.

Whatever your perspective on that social question, there's no denying the slow power of this film. It moves with the measured fascination of inevitability, and leaves you with a bitterness you can savor.