The Sweet Hereafter (1997)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Atom Egoyan

Writers:

Russell Banks (novel)
Atom Egoyan (screenplay)

Release Date:

21 November 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

There is no such thing as the simple truth.

Plot:

This film documents the effects of a tragic bus accident on the population of a small town.

Plot Keywords:

Community | Drugs | Wheelchair | Lawsuit | Bus Accident

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 29 wins & 20 nominations

Cast

Ian Holm	...	Mitchell Stevens
Caerthan Banks	...	Zoe Stevens
Sarah Polley	...	Nicole Burnell
Tom McCamus	...	Sam Burnell
Gabrielle Rose	...	Dolores Discolt
Alberta Watson	...	Risa
Maury Chaykin	...	Wendell
Stephanie Morgenstern	...	Allison
Kirsten Kieferle	...	Stewardess
Arsinée Khanjian	...	Wanda
Earl Pastko	...	Hartley
Simon Baker	...	Bear
David Hemblen	...	Abbott
Bruce Greenwood	...	Billy
Sarah Rosen Fruitman	...	Jessica
Marc Donato	...	Mason
Devon Finn	...	Sean
Fides Krucker	...	Klara
Magdalena Sokoloski	...	Young Zoe
James D. Watts	...	Young Mitchell
Brooke Johnson	...	Mary
Allegra Denton	...	Jenny
Peter Donaldson	...	Schwartz
Russell Banks	...	Dr. Robeson
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Mychael Danna	...	Live band harmonium player (uncredited)

Directed by
Atom Egoyan

Writing credits
Russell Banks		(novel)
Atom Egoyan		(screenplay)

Produced by
Sandra Cunningham	....	line producer
Atom Egoyan	....	producer
Camelia Frieberg	....	producer
Andras Hamori	....	executive producer
Robert Lantos	....	executive producer
David J. Webb	....	associate producer (as David Webb)

Original Music by
Mychael Danna

Cinematography by
Paul Sarossy

Film Editing by
Susan Shipton

Production Design by
Phillip Barker

Art Direction by
Kathleen Climie

Set Decoration by
Patricia Cuccia

Costume Design by
Beth Pasternak

Makeup Department
Gérald Altenburg	....	assistant hair stylist (as Gerald Altenburg)
Sylvain Cournoyer	....	makeup artist
Debra Johnson	....	hair stylist
Stephen Lynch	....	assistant makeup artist: British Columbia
Mary Monforte	....	assistant makeup artist

Production Management
Roberta Pazdro	....	production manager: British Columbia (as Roberta J. Pazdro)
Simone Urdl	....	post-production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Bruno Bryniarski	....	second assistant director
Cassandra Cronenberg	....	trainee assistant director
Andy Mikita	....	first assistant director: British Columbia aerial unit
Tracey Poirier	....	second assistant director: British Columbia aerial unit
Mary Sylwester	....	third assistant director
David J. Webb	....	first assistant director (as David Webb)

Art Department
Peter Atto	....	set dresser
Peter Bell	....	set apprentice
Larry Burkam	....	art department assistant: British Columbia
Larry Burkam	....	set dresser: British Columbia
Peter Cosco	....	first assistant art director
Darryl Dennis Deegan	....	lead set dresser
Sandy Glud	....	set buyer
Kate Greenaway	....	illustrator: Pied Piper book
Alexandra Hooper	....	lead set dresser
Mark Hunter	....	propman
Keith McCully	....	construction supervisor
Peter Miskimmin	....	propman
Daniel Olson	....	art department apprentice
Michele Witt	....	photographic artworks
Jon P. Goulding	....	set designer (uncredited)

Sound Department
Eric Apps	....	adr recordist: Casablanca
Colin Baxter	....	sound assistant
Ray Campbell	....	sound assistant
Andreas Carlsson	....	sound trainee
Tim J. Carroll	....	stereo sound consultant: Dolby
Bernie Cisternas	....	sound recording engineer
Sue Conley	....	dialogue editor
Steve Copley	....	foley mixer (as Steve Copely)
Keith Elliott	....	sound re-recording mixer
James A. Gore	....	foley assistant
Anna Gronau	....	sound trainee
David Horton	....	boom operator
Peter Kelly	....	sound re-recording mixer
Goro Koyama	....	foley artist
Bob Lacivita	....	adr recordist: The Complex
Andy Malcolm	....	foley artist
Ron Malligers	....	foley assistant (as Ron Mellegers)
Steve Munro	....	adr recordist: Trackworks (as Steven Munro)
Steve Munro	....	sound designer
Steve Munro	....	sound recording engineer (as Steven Munro)
Daniel Pellerin	....	sound re-recording mixer
Ross Redfern	....	sound recordist
Ron Searles	....	sound recording engineer
Greg Shim	....	adr recordist: DeLuxe
David Drainie Taylor	....	adr editor
Tony Van den Akker	....	foley mixer (as Tony Van Den Akker)
Sharon Zupancic	....	foley assistant

Special Effects by
Curtis Bradshaw	....	special effects assistant: British Columbia
Robert Moon	....	key special effects technician: British Columbia
Teo Moon	....	special effects assistant: British Columbia
Dawn Rivard	....	special effects shop
Jeff Skochko	....	special effects technician
Michael Kavanagh	....	special effects coordinator (uncredited)
Jason Wells	....	special effects crew (uncredited)

Visual Effects by
Dennis Berardi	....	digital film scanning and recording: Cine-Byte Imaging Inc. (uncredited)
Frank Falcone	....	visual effects supervisor (uncredited)
Sean Montgomery	....	visual effects (uncredited)
Persis Reynolds	....	visual effects producer: TOPIX (uncredited)

Stunts
Marc Akerstream	....	stunt consultant: British Columbia
Bill Ferguson	....	stunt consultant: British Columbia
Rick Pearce	....	stunt coordinator: British Columbia
Rick Pearce	....	stunts: British Columbia
Bryan Renfro	....	stunts (as Brian Renfro)
Peter Szkoda	....	stunt coordinator
Claire Webb	....	stunts: British Columbia (as Clarie Webb)
Rob Wilton	....	stunt coordinator: British Columbia
Rob Wilton	....	stunt double: Dolores, British Columbia

Camera and Electrical Department
Craig Anderl	....	second assistant camera: "b" camera, British Columbia
Paul Boucher	....	first assistant camera
Rod Crombie	....	Steadicam operator
Jack Cruikshank	....	generator operator: British Columbia
Johnnie Eisen	....	still photographer
John Foss	....	grip
Rodrigue Hamilton	....	electrician: British Columbia (as Rod Hamilton)
Reni Hoz	....	second assistant camera
George Kerr	....	best boy electric
Julian Keyzer	....	assistant camera: British Columbia aerial unit
Julian Keyzer	....	first assistant camera: "b" camera, British Columbia
John McIntosh	....	electrician: British Columbia (as John Macintosh)
Gregory Middleton	....	director of photography: British Columbia aerial unit (as Greg Middleton)
Tom O'Reilly	....	best boy grip (as Thomas O'Reilly)
David Owen	....	gaffer
John Piva	....	generator operator
Brian Potts	....	key grip
Dave Suddaby	....	electrician (as David Suddaby)
Nick Swyntuch	....	grip
Kirsta Teague	....	camera trainee
Jason Webber	....	electrician
Dale Zucchet	....	generator operator: British Columbia
Jim Filippone	....	pilot: camera helicopter (uncredited)

Casting Department
Megan Conacher	....	extras casting
Suzanne Leslie	....	extras casting: British Columbia

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Pat Blow	....	costume assistant: British Columbia
Patricia Boulden	....	assistant costume designer
Joan Boyko	....	costumer
Alex Reda	....	assistant costume designer

Editorial Department
Chris Hinton	....	color timer: DeLuxe
Janis Kanigan	....	color timer: British Columbia
Paul Winestock	....	first assistant editor
Tai Zimmer	....	apprentice editor
Dov Samuel	....	assistant editor (uncredited)

Music Department
David Archer	....	musician: sackbut
Anne Bourne	....	musician: cello, backing vocals
Tim Clement	....	musician: acoustic electric guitar
Al Cross	....	musician: drums
Mychael Danna	....	music arranger: songs
Mychael Danna	....	musician: harmonium and acoustic guitar
Kim Deschamps	....	musician: pedal steel, electric bass, acoustic guitar
David Eallis	....	musician: bells, percussion
Michael Franklin	....	musician: shawm, krumhorn, recorder
David Greenberg	....	musician: vielle
Ben Grossman	....	musician: percussion
Gary Honess	....	assistant recording engineer
Alison Mackay	....	musician: vielle, recorder
Terry McKenna	....	musician: lute
Alison Melville	....	musician: recorder
Hossein Omoumi	....	musician: Persian ney
Greg Robertson	....	assistant recording engineer
Dante Winkler	....	assistant recording engineer
Ron Korb	....	musician: flute (uncredited)

Transportation Department
Denise Anderson	....	driver: British Columbia
Zoe Black	....	driver: British Columbia
Martin Boon	....	driver
Brian Brennan	....	picture car coordinator: British Columbia
Richard Chilton	....	transportation coordinator: British Columbia
Paul Davies	....	driver
Rosemary Dell	....	driver: British Columbia
Shawn Doyle	....	driver: British Columbia
Harold Felhauer	....	driver: British Columbia
Mike Giles	....	driver: British Columbia
Frank Guadagno	....	driver: British Columbia
Al Izumi	....	driver
Nancy Jackson	....	driver: British Columbia
Viola Janzen	....	driver: British Columbia
Janelle Kelly	....	driver: British Columbia
Ryan Kosmynka	....	driver: British Columbia
Herb Langill	....	driver: British Columbia
Evan Siegel	....	transportation coordinator
Bill Sims	....	driver
Bob Snape	....	transportation captain: British Columbia (as Robert Snape)
Gary Strachan	....	driver: British Columbia
Andres Vosu	....	transportation captain
Matt West	....	driver

Other crew
Allen Bell	....	script editor
Joan Boyko	....	set supervisor: British Columbia
Shimmy Brandes	....	assistant to producer
Lorne Davidson	....	location manager: British Columbia
Wendy Gibbs	....	first aid: British Columbia
Shirley Granger	....	production accountant
Joanne T. Harwood	....	script supervisor (as Joanne Tolley-Harwood)
Cory Kinney	....	assistant location manager
Florance Krause	....	production secretary: British Columbia
Martyn Krys	....	production lawyer
Frank Larre	....	caterer: British Columbia
Suzanne Leslie	....	extras coordinator: British Columbia
Sarah McCarthy	....	production assistant
Sheona McDonald	....	production assistant
Beth Nadeau	....	caterer: British Columbia
Eva Nagy	....	flag person: British Columbia
Bill Nesbitt	....	security officer
Sarah Pape	....	production assistant
Rick Parker	....	animal wrangler
Lynne Pollack	....	flag person: British Columbia
Holly Redford	....	production coordinator: British Columbia
Tracey Renyard	....	assistant location manager: British Columbia
Darren Robson	....	location production assistant: British Columbia
Bill Sims	....	assistant: Ian Holm
Mark Steinberg	....	director's observer
Matt Thomas	....	craft service
Tami Thomson	....	production coordinator
Simone Urdl	....	assistant: Atom Egoyan
Alicia Wicinski	....	production secretary
Matthew Williams	....	location production assistant
Selina Williams	....	location production assistant: British Columbia
Eardley Wilmot	....	location manager
Andrea Wood	....	legal affairs: Alliance Pictures
Colin Aguiar	....	assistant: Mychael Danna (uncredited)
Simon St. Laurent	....	opticals: Film Opticals (uncredited)

Thanks
Margaret Atwood	....	thanks
Kavita 'Bad Cavity' Bhatia	....	musical thanks
Jack Blum	....	thanks
John Buchan	....	thanks
Sharon Corder	....	thanks
Lara Fitzgerald	....	musical thanks
Marc Glassman	....	thanks
Bill House	....	special thanks
Peter Jones	....	musical thanks
Victor Loewy	....	special thanks
Michèle Pétin	....	thanks (as Michèle Halberstadt)
Larissa Remedios	....	musical thanks
Julia Tait	....	thanks
Vandana Taxali	....	musical thanks
Chase Twichell	....	thanks
Leo Van Tine	....	thanks: Merritt Search & Rescue

Production Companies

• Alliance Communications Corporation
• Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit (CPTC)
• Ego Film Arts
• Gort of Canada
• Harold Greenberg Fund, The
• Movie Network, The (TMN)
• Téléfilm Canada

Distributors

• Alliance Communications Corporation
• Fine Line Features (Canada)
• Fine Line Features (USA)
• New Line Home Video (1990) (USA) (VHS)
• Kinowelt Home Entertainment (2007) (Germany) (DVD)
• Alpha Filmes (Brazil) (VHS)
• Argentina Video Home (Argentina) (video)
• Arthaus Filmverleih (Germany)
• Atalanta Filmes (Portugal)
• Budapest Film (Hungary)
• Distribution Company (Argentina)
• Electric (UK)
• Electric Pictures
• Fine Line Features (Canada) (A Time Warner Company)
• Fine Line Features (USA) (A Time Warner Company)
• Líder Films (Spain)
• New Line Home Video (USA) (DVD)
• RCV Film Distribution (Belgium)
• RCV Film Distribution (Luxembourg)
• RCV Film Distribution (Netherlands)
• Scandinavian Entertainment Group (Norway)
• Versátil (Brazil) (DVD)

Special Effects

• Cine-Byte Imaging (digital imaging)
• Mad Dog Digital (digital compositing and effects)
• TOPIX Computer Graphics & Animation (computer animation)

Other Companies

• AON/Ruben-Winkler Entertainment Insurance  insurance
• British Columbia Hockey League  hockey footage courtesy of
• By David's  catering
• CBC National News  Laurie Brown footage courtesy of
• CBC Studio 44  Toronto Consort recorded at
• DeLuxe Laboratories  post-production facilities
• DeLuxe Laboratories  sound
• Deluxe Post-Production  post-production facilities
• Film Opticals  titles
• Francont Film  negative cutting
• Government of Canada  produced with the assistance of
• Handmade Sets  set construction
• Hot Knives  catering
• Magnetic North, The  post-production facilities
• Merritt Chamber of Commerce  thanks
• Merritt Search & Rescue  thanks
• Merritt Security Services  security
• Number 9 Sound  Sam Dent Band recorded at
• Okanagan Wine Tours  shuttle buses provided by
• P.S. Production Services  equipment provided by
• Panavision Canada  equipment provided by
• Rogers Community 4  hockey footage courtesy of
• Ruben Entertainment Insurance Services  insurance
• Sam Dent Band  group performers
• Somerville National Leasing  production vehicles
• Starcraft Services  craft service
• Toronto Consort  group performers
• Trackworks Inc.  ney recorded at

Also Known As:

De beaux lendemains (Canada: French title)

MPAA:

Rated R for sexuality and some language.

Runtime:

112 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Hong Kong:IIB | Iceland:12 | Singapore:NC-16 | South Africa:13LS | New Zealand:M | USA:TV-MA (cable rating) | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Brazil:16 | Canada:14A | Chile:18 | Germany:12 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:R(A) | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:16 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Merritt, British Columbia, Canada

Company:

Alliance Communications Corporation

Trivia:

Cameo: [Russell Banks]the author of the novel the movie is based on makes a cameo as the doctor ("The mind is kind") in the hospital scene with Sarah Polley.

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Stephens visits the Ottos, and Mr. Otto offers him some tea, we hear a teakettle whistling but the one we see on the cooker is not the whistling type.

Quotes:

Dolores: I remember wrenching the steering wheel to the right and slapping my foot against the brake petal. I wasn't the driver anymore. The bus was like this huge wave about to break over us. Bear Otto, the Lambston kids, the Hamiltons, the Prescotts, the teenaged boys and girls from Bartlett Hill Road, Pete, Suzy, Laura, Rick, Sean Walker, Nicole Burnell, Billy Ansel's twins, Jessica and Mason... all the children of my town.
[begins sobbing]
Mitchell Stephens: Then what happened?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "My Wife and Kids: The Sweet Hairafter (#4.2)" (2003)

Soundtrack:

Courage

Not for everyone, but this melancholy film stays with you long after its over...

I re-watched The Sweet Hereafter on video last night, and am still haunted by it today. It is structured so that you know some of the basic tragic plot near the beginning. This caused my eyes to water at some of the beautiful lyrical overhead tracking shots of the school bus winding through the snow covered roads of the Pacific northwest.

The film switches between the time that the lawyer arrives in town to "help" the families receive compensation, and to days just prior to the accident. We witness a loving "hippie" couple who has adopted a beautiful Native American boy, a loving mother of a school phobic learning disabled boy, and a widower who loves his two children a great deal and sees them off to school by following them in his truck. This same widower is having an affair with the mother of the school phobic--she is unhappily married to a "pig" of a husband. Complicating matters is the father who obviously loves his teenage daughter in Lolita-like fashion.

Part of the theme of The Sweet Hereafter is similar to Magnolia--accidents do happen--perhaps no one at fault... or perhaps all the adults had some part in it without anyone being at fault, as only the innocent children were killed.

The town had changed... tragedy has taken away the town's joy and innocence. The parents are no longer open with each other, but guarded, suspicious... in deep grief.

The lawyer is little more than an ambulance chaser, attempting to profit off their tragedy. Yet, he, too is a tragic figure who has already "lost" his daughter--

He had saved her when she was a baby, yet she has now turned away from him... and his feelings are now ambivalent towards her--he is a grief-stricken, defeated father, who vascillates between wanting to talk with his daughter on his cell phone and deciding to cut her off.

The story of the Pied Piper is interweaved between various events in the movie to give greater depth to the story. There's also a great scene in the movie between the lawyer and the garage mechanic, who has lost his two children, that shows that the theme is much broader than the literal story:

"I'm telling you this because... we've all lost our children, Mr. Ansel. They're dead to us. They kill each other in the streets. They wander comatose in shopping malls. They're paralyzed in front of televisions. Something terrible has happened that's taken our children away. It's too late. They're gone."

This movie isn't for everyone. It's a serious, layered piece with a lot of melancholy. The kind of fare that film critics can love, but Academy voters will avoid. But what it strives to accomplish is done very well. And it will stay with you long after the final scenes have appeared.