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- In The Sweet Hereafter, as in his previous novels The Book of Jamaica (1980) and Affliction (1989), Banks uses multiple points of view, telling his story of a school-bus accident in a small New York town in the Adirondack mountains in which fourteen children are killed by using four different characters: Dolores Driscoll, the straightforward and practical school bus driver who is made an outcast in the town because of the accident; Billy Ansel, a Vietnam veteran who was driving behind the bus...
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The Sweet Hereafter is a 1997 Canadian drama film written and directed by Atom Egoyan, adapted from the 1991 novel by Russell Banks. It tells the story of a school bus accident in a small town that kills 14 children. A class-action lawsuit ensues, proving divisive in the community and becoming tied with personal and family issues.
- Overview
- Synopsis
- Production
- Critical reception
- Production notes and credits
- Cast
The Sweet Hereafter, Canadian dramatic film, released in 1997, about a lawyer (Ian Holm) who comes to a small town to sign clients for a lawsuit after a school bus accident. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes film festival and received Academy Award nominations for best director (Atom Egoyan) and best adapted screenplay (Egoyan). The Sweet H...
Based on the 1991 novel by Russell Banks, The Sweet Hereafter recounts the fictional events leading up to and following a school bus accident that kills 14 children in a small town in the British Columbia interior. The story follows the families whose lives irrevocably change and a big-city lawyer, Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm), who hopes to sign them up for a class-action lawsuit. In the ensuing atmosphere of suspicion, guilt and doubt, a surviving teenager named Nicole (Sarah Polley), who has lost the use of her legs in the accident, regains her strength and dignity and, by telling a lie, reunites the community.
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Banks’s novel was based on a 1989 bus crash in Alton, Texas, that claimed the lives of 21 children and resulted in a series of lucrative settlements that fractured the community. After Egoyan read the book—a birthday gift from his wife, actress Arsinée Khanjian—he felt determined to adapt it but discovered that the American company Fox Searchlight had already optioned it. He met Banks through a mutual friend, author Margaret Atwood, and acquired the rights from him after Searchlight rejected the script they had commissioned and their option expired.
The Sweet Hereafter was the first screenplay that Egoyan adapted from another source. In addition to relocating the action of the novel from upstate New York to the British Columbia interior, he reordered the narrative structure in a non-linear fashion and added readings from The Pied Piper of Hamelin as a framing device. Donald Sutherland was originally cast as Mitchell Stevens, but he withdrew from the film 10 days before shooting began and was replaced by Ian Holm. Egoyan’s adaptation is told from multiple points of view, and the cast, which includes Bruce Greenwood, Tom McCamus, Maury Chaykin, and Khanjian, is impeccable. However, it is Holm’s central performance as the tragic, deeply flawed lawyer that stands out and holds the rest together like a magnet.
Critics greeted The Sweet Hereafter with almost universal praise. The film generated a great deal of positive word of mouth in the United States, culminating in Egoyan’s two Oscar nominations, despite grossing less than $4 million at the North American box office. It also generated controversy and a good deal of critical analysis over its depiction...
•Studio: Ego Film Arts
•Director: Atom Egoyan
•Producers: Atom Egoyan and Camelia Freiberg
•Writer: Atom Egoyan
•Music: Mychael Danna
•Running time: 112 minutes
•Ian Holm (Mitchell Stevens)
•Sarah Polley (Nicole Burnell)
•Tom McCamus (Sam Burnell)
•Gabrielle Rose (Dolores Driscoll)
•Maury Chaykin (Wendell)
•Bruce Greenwood (Billy)
Dolores cares for her husband, Abbott Driscoll, who was partially paralyzed by a stroke in the 1980s. Dolores is very familiar with the roads of Sam Dent, the subtle changes in weather and driving conditions, and the possible dangers from other drivers.
Nov 27, 2019 · After a fatal bus crash that kills almost all of a town’s children, a lawyer tries to rouse some of the victims’ families to pursue a class action suit. The young girl, who is the sole child to survive the crash, and also a survivor of.
The Sweet Hereafter: Directed by Atom Egoyan. With Ian Holm, Caerthan Banks, Sarah Polley, Tom McCamus. A bus crash in a small town brings a lawyer to defend the families, but he discovers everything isn't what it seems.
Dec 23, 1997 · In “The Sweet Hereafter,” an important character is a teenage girl who loses the use of her legs in the accident; she survives, but seems unwilling to accept the life left for her. Egoyan is a director whose films coil through time and double back to take a second look at the lives of their characters.
