The Sweet Hereafter
Short description
A school bus crash in a small Canadian mountain town kills many of its children, and the community struggles to cope with the loss. A lawyer from the city, Mitchell Stephens, arrives to organize a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the families, but his efforts expose divisions among the townspeople rather than bringing them together. Meanwhile, Nicole, a teenage survivor of the accident, must come to terms with how the tragedy and its aftermath have changed her life.
Atom Egoyan directed and wrote the screenplay, and produced the film with Camelia Frieberg. It followed his 1994 film Exotica in his filmography, and Ian Holm plays Mitchell Stephens. Sarah Polley appears as Nicole Burnell, with Tom McCamus as Sam Burnell, Gabrielle Rose as Dolores Driscoll, Alberta Watson as Risa Walker and Caerthan Banks as Zoe Stephens. The production had a budget of 5 million USD and took in 8 million USD at the worldwide box office.
On IMDb, the film holds a rating of 6.9 out of 10 from 443 votes, while its critics' rating stands at 8.9 out of 10 from 61 reviews. The gap between the two suggests that reviewers responded to the film more strongly than the general audience did.
What's left behind the scenes
- Russell Banks, the author of the novel on which this film is based, played a small role as a doctor in the hospital.
- Originally, the role of Mitchell Stevens was to be played by Donald Sutherland, however, shortly before filming began, the actor declined to participate and was replaced by Ian Holm.
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