SWEET HEREAFTER, THE

"Atom Egoyan's latest is probably the best new film I've seen this year (except Kundun). Less hermetic than Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter has much the same arty sheen: solemn, not quite credible dialogue carries us through slow cycles of recurring imagery, as we observe various 'ordinary' citizens both before and after the horrific bus accident that devastates their lives. This accident is far from the only trauma to surface in the film, where histories of pain expand outward like cracks in the ice; the impossibility of finding causes or assigning blame is part of Egoyan’s subject, and (as in Exotica) the flashback structure powerfully mimes the processes of grief, in its obsessive, futile going-over of the past. What the film also captures, though, is the flip side of grief, a kind of giddy, unfathomable weightlessness: something we begin to feel as we return over and over to long-shots of the bus on its fated journey, winding silently round the snowy hills, viewed from ever-longer perspectives in space and time. This weightlessness is part of the subject too, and is felt everywhere – especially in Egoyan’s oddly cagey, glancing presentation of some murky relationships between the townspeople. Taking the pushiness of its emotion-peddling lawyer as a warning, the film is all about maintaining a delicacy and distance in the face of the fragile emotional landscape of trauma – the ‘sweet hereafter’ of the mysterious, not quite ironic title, ‘where everything is strange and new.’"
Jake Wilson

"The Sweet Hereafter is director Atom Egoyan's most assured and complete movie to date, as well as his most accessible. Amplifying many of the themes explored in his previous outing, Exotica, the Canadian director/writer/producer shows the powerful effects of grief and anger on a community devastated by an unspeakable tragedy. During the course of this 110-minute, emotionally- turbulent experience, Egoyan doesn't ask any easy questions or propose any pat answers. This is film making at its most powerful: drama capable of shaking the soul, yet free of even the slightest hint of manipulation, sentimentality, or mawkishness. Thematically, the film continues to explore many of his prevalent concerns, including that of emotional isolation, further bridging a curious gap between the screen and his audience. Egoyan has certainly grown as an artist, cinematically, and on a purely artistic and cerebral level, Sweet Hereafter is an intoxicating and inspiring work, from its opening frozen images, to the remarkable bus crash sequence done without the expense of larger-than-life special effects. In the central role, Ian Holm delivers a masterful and deeply complex performance, one of the most compelling of the year, and he's joined by an accomplished ensemble cast. Beautifully shot, the Canadian landscape further heightens the film's depth and power. Though there is no denying the film's skill, its main flaw is precisely that quality that Egoyan brings to his work, an air of detachment that, in the case of this film, seems at times, far too obvious for its own good. Yet, at a time when the cinema offers audiences quick fixes and narrative simplicity, it's refreshing that a film maker such as Egoyan can deliver intelligent, complex dramas minus the proverbial pat endings."
Paul Fischer