"The Sweet Hereafter"-Atom Egoyan-1997
Mitchell Stevens (Ian Holm) is a plaintiff's lawyer in accident cases. He comes to a small Canadian town to bring a suit on behalf of local residents after a disaster where a school bus carrying some 20+ students goes off the road and falls through the ice. Egoyan wrote the screenplay from a Russell Banks novel inspired by a Texas school bus disaster in 1989. The movie weaves together both time and observers. We see the events from the perspective of different observers, and how the events have affected them. Stevens is the outsider; his business is to assemble a group of plaintiffs and to assemble evidence so that blame may be assessed. He believes that only by assessing blame can the townspeople channel their anger positively. His principle is that somebody must be to blame.
Holm's performance is masterful. The lawyer, Mitchell Stevens, brings his own problems to his investigations. His daughter, Zoe, has become a drug addict. Later we find out that she has AIDS. He believes that he has done everything a conscientious parent could do, but the cures have never lasted. His anger has never been resolved. He has never found someone to blame.
The school bus driver, Dolores Driscoll, is a loving and caring person. The walls in her house are covered with pictures of "her children." We are offered some views of her positive interactions with the children, particularly at a local fair. The fair introduces us to our second perspective. Nicole Burnell (Sarah Polley) is a talented aspiring country music singer. We see her practicing with other musicians, then meeting with her father. She is the apple of his eye. Nicole survives the bus crash, but she is confined to a wheelchair. The night before the accident she is babysitting the children of Billy Ansell, Bruce Greenwood, while he has a tryst with the wife of the local motel owner. Nicole reads the children Robert Browning's "The Pied Piper of Hamlin". It is an 1888 edition with beautiful illustrations. Nicole tells the children that Pied Piper is angry with the townspeople for not paying him. He plays his tune and causes the children to follow him because of that anger. One child who is lame cannot keep up, and he is left behind when the mountain closes.
Billy Ansell follows the bus carrying his children every day. They wave to each other, so on the day of the crash he is following the school bus. He sees the accident, but he can do nothing to stop the bus or even to
rescue anyone. He faces down Stevens telling him to drop the case; he goes so far as to threaten the lawyer.
That doesn't work, so he attempts to convince parents not to be a party to the law suit.
Nicole's deposition dooms the suit; she lies about the speed of the bus when it goes off the road. Mitchell remarks to Nicole: "You'd make a good poker player." Nicole thinks: her town has become: "A place with its own special rules and its own special laws. A town of people living in the Sweet Hereafter."
This film has terrific acting and beautiful photography, but what makes it compelling is how Egoyan tells the story. The people in the town may get to live in the "Sweet Hereafter," but this viewer certainly didn't. I keep rewinding the story in my mind. I try to examine it from different perspectives. Let me give you one example. Mitchell accepts the loss of the suit. In the coda to the film, two years after the bus crash, he sees Dolores, the bus driver, now the driver not of a school bus but of a large commercial bus. She is happy and is charming her passengers. Mitchell is in this city after a plane flight where he has been discussing his daughter with one of her high school friends. Should he have learned something about leaving his own anger and blame behind? From that point, my mind tries to travel several roads simultaneously.
I found no easy answers here, but lots of interesting questions. Highly recommended.
