The Sweet Hereafter
The Sweet Hereafter poster
Directed by	Atom Egoyan
Produced by	Atom Egoyan Camelia Frieberg
Written by	Russell Banks (novel) Atom Egoyan
Starring	Ian Holm Sarah Polley Bruce Greenwood
Release date(s)	May 14, 1997 (Cannes Film Festival)
Running time	112 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Sweet Hereafter is a novel (1991) written by U.S. author Russell Banks; and an award-winning film (1997) by Canadian director Atom Egoyan, who also wrote the screenplay. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (508x755, 61 KB) This image is of a movie poster, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher of the movie or the studio which produced the movie in question. ... Atom Egoyan and wife Arsinee Khanjian at the Golden Apricot Film Festival in Yerevan, Armenia. ... Atom Egoyan and wife Arsinee Khanjian at the Golden Apricot Film Festival in Yerevan, Armenia. ... Russell Banks (born March 28, 1940) is an American writer of fiction and poetry. ... Atom Egoyan and wife Arsinee Khanjian at the Golden Apricot Film Festival in Yerevan, Armenia. ... Sir Ian Holm Sir Ian Holm CBE (born 12 September 1931), born as Ian Holm Cuthbert, is an English actor. ... Sarah Polley Sarah Polley (born January 8, 1979, in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian actress, singer and film director. ... Stuart Bruce Greenwood (August 12, 1956—) is a Canadian actor, born in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec. ... May 14 is the 134th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (135th in leap years). ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended, generally fictional narrative in prose. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Russell Banks (born March 28, 1940) is an American writer of fiction and poetry. ... Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Atom Egoyan and wife Arsinee Khanjian at the Golden Apricot Film Festival in Yerevan, Armenia. ... A screenplay or script is a blueprint for producing a motion picture. ...

Banks's novel is a multiple first person narrative depicting life in a small town in Upstate New York in the wake of a terrible school bus accident in which numerous local children are killed. Hardly able to cope with the loss, their grieving parents are approached by a slick city lawyer who wants them to sue for damages. At first the parents are reluctant to do so, but eventually they are persuaded by the lawyer that filing a class action lawsuit would ease their minds and also be the right thing to do. Upstate New York is the region of New York State outside of the core of the New York metropolitan area. ... An IC Corporation CE300 bus transporting Houston ISD students. ... English barrister 16th century painting of a civil law notary, by Flemish painter Quentin Massys. ... In law, damages refers to the money paid or awarded to a claimant (as it is known in the UK) or plaintiff (in the US) following their successful claim in a civil action. ... In law, a class action is an equitable procedural device used in litigation for determining the rights of and remedies, if any, for large numbers of people whose cases involve common questions of law and fact. ... It has been suggested that civil trial be merged into this article or section. ...

Plot

As most of the children are dead, the case now depends on the few surviving witnesses to say the right things in court. In particular, it is 15 year-old Nichole Burnell, who was sitting at the front of the bus and is now paralysed from the waist down, whose deposition is all-important. However, she unexpectedly accuses Dolores Driscoll, the driver, of speeding and thus causing the accident. When she does so, all hopes of ever receiving money are thwarted. All the people involved know that Nichole is lying but cannot do anything about it. Only her father knows why, but he is unable to publicly reveal his daughter's motives. Paralysis is the complete loss of muscle function for one or more muscle groups. ... In law, a deposition is evidence given under oath and recorded for use in court at a later date. ...

Both the novel and the film are about capturing the atmosphere in a small town suddenly shaken by catastrophe. Fathers take to drinking, secret affairs are abruptly ended, whole families move away. Only the reader/viewer knows that Mitchell Stephens, the lawyer, is himself a troubled man who has effectively lost his own child—his estranged, drug-addicted daughter informs him over the phone that she has just tested HIV positive. Alcoholism is the consumption of, or preoccupation with, alcoholic beverages to the extent that this behavior interferes with the drinkers normal personal, family, social, or work life, and may lead to physical or mental harm. ... Human immunodeficiency virus or HIV is a retrovirus that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which the immune system begins to fail, leading to life-threatening opportunistic infections. ...

Themes in the book and movie

There is a somewhat different emotional focus between the book and the movie. The book deals more centrally with the futile attempt to find meaning in a tragic event and in the emptiness of the aftermath, with Dolores serving as the sacrificial scapegoat the town requires in order to heal. This theme is especially evident in the character of the lawyer Mitchell Stephens, who is driven by a fervent need to find someone to blame, to keep the inevitable realization from sinking in that it is all senseless—pain and tragedy sometimes simply happen without reason. The scapegoat was a goat that was driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in Judaism during the times of the Temple in Jerusalem. ...

In the movie, Nichole is seen reading The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning to children who later die in the accident. In that story, the Pied Piper leads all the children away, never to return, after their parents refuse to honor their debt to him. Though Egoyan's screenplay is not necessarily saying that the parents are responsible for the deaths of their children in the bus accident, when juxtaposed with the incidents of incest and adultery among the townspeople, the Pied Piper theme perhaps introduces a moral judgment against them not evident in the book—that the accident is an implied punishment for their sins. The oldest picture of Pied Piper (watercolor) copied from the glass window of Marktkirche in Hameln by Freiherr Augustin von Moersperg. ... Robert Browning For information about Robert X. Browning, Director of the C-SPAN archives, see Robert X. Browning. ... This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ... Adultery is generally defined as consensual sexual intercourse by a married person with someone other than his or her lawful spouse. ...

In the Pied Piper, there is a crippled child who is unable to follow the Piper's song, and so he is left behind in a now-childless town, forever wishing he could have gone with the other children. The paralyzed survivor, Nichole, is clearly identified with this child in the movie, shifting away from her motivation in the book in which she is primarily acting out of anger against her incestuous father. Instead in the movie she has mixed feeling about the accident - on the one hand it has crippled her and killed her friends, on the other hand it has given her power over her father.

The Pied Piper theme is further enhanced through a haunting score by Mychael Danna, which is heavily influenced by Medieval and Renaissance music with frequent appearances of a flute. Mychael Danna is a film composer. ... A musician plays the vielle in a 14th century medieval manuscript. ... Renaissance music is European classical music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ...

The song Courage (for Hugh MacLennan) by The Tragically Hip serves as the theme song used in the soundtrack. John Hugh MacLennan (March 20, 1907 - November 7, 1990) was a Canadian author and Professor of English at McGill University. ... The Tragically Hip is a Canadian rock band from Kingston, Ontario. ...

Cast

• Ian Holm - Mitchell Stephens (lawyer)
• Sarah Polley - Nichole Burnell (victim)
• Tom McCamus - Sam Burnell (father)
• Alberta Watson - Risa Walker (parent)
• Bruce Greenwood - Billy Ansel (parent)
• Gabrielle Rose - Dolores Driscoll (bus driver)
• Arsinée Khanjian - Wanda Otto (parent)
• Mychael Danna - Live band harmonium player (uncredited)

Sir Ian Holm Sir Ian Holm CBE (born 12 September 1931), born as Ian Holm Cuthbert, is an English actor. ... Sarah Polley Sarah Polley (born January 8, 1979, in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian actress, singer and film director. ... Tom McCamus (born July 25, 1955) is an award-winning film and theatre actor who is most widely known for his work on the science-fiction television show Mutant X. McCamus was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, but was brought up in London, Ontario from the age of 10 when... Alberta Watson Faith Susan Alberta Watson (born March 6, 1955 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian movie and television series actress, better known as Alberta Watson. ... Stuart Bruce Greenwood (August 12, 1956—) is a Canadian actor, born in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec. ... Arsinée Khanjian (born 1958 in Beirut, Lebanon) is a Canadian actress and producer. ... Mychael Danna is a film composer. ...

Links to other Russell Banks novels

The town of Sam Dent is used as the background for several other Russell Banks novels and collections of short stories. Russell Banks (born March 28, 1940) is an American writer of fiction and poetry. ...

• Rule of the Bone - Nichole Burnell's younger brothers are living in the derelict school bus now parked in the middle of a field.

Rule Of The Bone is a controversial 1995 novel by Russell Banks. ...

External links

• The Sweet Hereafter at the Internet Movie Database
• Film reviews
• Script of movie