Review of The Sweet Hereafter (1997) by Gg J — 07 Jun 2009
Thousands died when they drowned at the end of ?Titanic,? but the 1997 adventure didn?t pummel the heart like it should have. ?The Sweet Hereafter,? another ?97 drama about an upper New York state town devastated by a school bus crash, did that.
Ian Holm plays Mitchell Stephens, an attorney who comes to the town to launch a lawsuit against the unknown ?creators? of an incident that has killed nearly every child in the burg. (There is no such thing as an accident, he says.) Stephens sets out to find a ?pure? family to lead his civil suit, but, of course, no such group exists. And Stephens has his own raging demons inside his emotionally cold body ? his daughter is a drug-addicted waif with HIV.
Written and directed by Atom Egoyan (?Exotica?), the film defines heartbreaking as it lays out the coldest of fact during a tragedy ? sometimes there is no purpose, there is only pain. Holm (?Alien?) is brilliant, and should have won an Oscar for his role. Only one scene is wrong: A father-daughter incest tryst in a barn loft, filled with candles. Still, absolutely one of 1997?s best.
This review of The Sweet Hereafter (1997) was written by Gg J on 07 Jun 2009.
The Sweet Hereafter has generally received very positive reviews.
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