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The Sweet Hereafter
A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.
1997 · Directed by Atom Egoyan · 112 min · Drama · Screenplay in the scene database · 5 frames
Tagline
There is no such thing as the simple truth.
Plot
In the small town of Sam Dent, British Columbia, a school bus hits a patch of ice, runs through a barrier, and crashes into a lake, killing 14 children. The grieving parents are approached by an out-of-town lawyer, Mitchell Stephens, who is haunted by his dysfunctional relationship with his drug-addicted daughter. Stephens persuades the reluctant parents and bus driver Dolores Driscoll to file a class-action lawsuit against the town and bus company for damages, arguing that the accident is a result of negligence in constructing the barrier or the bus.
The case depends on coaching the few surviving witnesses to say the right things in court, particularly Nicole Burnell, a 15-year-old paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the accident. Before the accident, Nicole was an aspiring musician and was being sexually abused by her father, Sam.
One bereft parent, Billy Ansel, distrusts Stephens and pressures Sam to drop the case; Nicole overhears their argument. In the pretrial deposition, Nicole unexpectedly states that Dolores was speeding, going 72 miles per hour (116 km/h), far beyond the actual speed shown in an earlier scene, but nonetheless halting the lawsuit. Stephens and Sam know she is lying but can do nothing. Two years later, Stephens sees Dolores working as a bus driver in a city.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Atom Egoyan
- Cinematography: Paul Sarossy
- Edited by: Susan Shipton
- Music: Mychael Danna
- Production design: Phillip Barker
- Produced by: Atom Egoyan, Camelia Frieberg
Cast
- Ian Holm as Mitchell Stephens
- Sarah Polley as Nicole Burnell
- Tom McCamus as Sam Burnell
- Gabrielle Rose as Dolores Driscoll
- Alberta Watson as Risa Walker
- Caerthan Banks as Zoe Stephens
- Maury Chaykin as Wendell Walker
- Stephanie Morgenstern as Allison
- Bruce Greenwood as Billy Ansel
- Arsinée Khanjian as Wanda Otto
Production
- Country: Canada
- Language: English
- Studios: Ego Film Arts, Alliance Films
- Budget: $5,000,000
- Box office: $7,951,247
- Themes: small town, canada, based on novel or book, suffering, village, paralysis, based on true story, tragedy, lawyer, car accident
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