[***3/4 stars/*****]
Once upon a time on a snowy day in the little town of Sam Dent, British Columbia, a school bus driven by the experienced Dolores Driscoll (Gabrielle Rose) cuts across a road barrier and falls into a lake, killing 14 children.
Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm), a lawyer fending off personal issues with his separated drug-addict daughter Zoe (Caerthan Banks), descends vulture-like on the town folk and grieving parents, literally manipulating them to ask for damages.
Stephens plans to build a case based on alleged negligence of the bus manufacturer and the road barrier makers. His condition is to keep one-third of the damages won, and take no fees if he loses the case.
As Stephens goes around craftily persuading affected parents to fight the case, the quiet town is divided for and against filing charges.
Billy Ansel (Bruce Greenwood) who was driving his car behind the school bus as usual to wave at his children when the accident occurred is furious with Stephens, threatening to bash him up for good.
Meanwhile Stephens wants Nicole Burnell (Sarah Polley), 15, accident survivor, now paralysed from the waist down, to make the 'right' statement to win the case.
But there is more to the grieving and tragedy - an illicit affair, child abuse, daddy issues, unashamed need for money, guilt and greed.
Haunting moments
Based on the 1991 novel, The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks, a book loosely inspired by the Alton, Texas bus crash that killed 21 students, the screenplay by Canadian director Atom Egoyan is a near-masterpiece.
The events go back and forth, cutting across timelines, Egoyan keeps us guessing and intrigued, building up the drama like a snow sculpture, that gradually shapes into coherence.
The recently deceased Ian Holm is particularly terrific as the immoral lawyer.
This may be the act that won him the role of Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is a seething, nervy act.
Bruce Greenwood as the righteous angry dad and Sarah Polley as Nicole are excellent, the rest of the ensemble is superb too.
The Pied Piper analogy
The haunting bits involve Nicole's reading of 'The Pied Piper' fairy tale to Billy's children, emphasized and revisited in effective voice-overs to match the tragedy of the tale and the bus tragedy.
How the fairy tale ominously runs parallel to the tale are parts that elevate the drama in The Sweet Herafter.
The part about the dying baby and the implications of what a father needs to do to save its life - the telling is pure cinema.
The Sweet Herafter cuts above many, similar, slow-burner movies, for its haunting, snow-lush quality, despite the absence of anything overtly dramatic, apart from the accident scenes.
Cinema lovers will find a lot to admire.
My take - this is how you make a sensitive fictional drama based on a real-life tragedy.
