peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2023 02 08 TheSweetHereafter

The Sweet Hereafter (1997)

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Adapted and directed by Atom Egoyan (Ararat) from a Russell Banks novel. A two-track from the lost age of movies for adults: we're shown lawyer Ian Holm's life in parallel with the goings-on of a small-town where a school bus crash killed almost all the children. It's a bit slow and moody in the Twin Peaks mode: the music, acting, mood, wintry mountains, smallness of the community, relations between people and so forth. The last needed some more digging to make it matter more. The plot is framed by the Pied Piper fable, read by Sarah Polley who steals every scene she's in. Bruce Greenwood is also solid. Somehow it put me in mind of Mystic River. The Tragically Hip provide most the soundtrack.

Roger Ebert: four stars, one of the best films of the year. Stephanie Zacharek. Janet Maslin.