Film: A cerebral stake-out of the soul
Atom Egoyan's lyrical, understated movie tackles difficult subjects in a disconcertingly straightforward way
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The Sweet Hereafter Atom Egoyan (15)
Devotees of the enigmatic Canadian writer-director Atom Egoyan will notice a slight change of pace in his adaptation of Russell Banks's novel The Sweet Hereafter. Earlier films like The Adjuster and Exotica have been intricate little puzzles in which character motivation can often appear to be suspended until the final minutes, when everything is brought into focus. In The Sweet Hereafter, there is less a sense of a film being defined by its resolution. This may be because, if you were to straighten out its flashback structure into chronological order, the ending would occur in the middle. More likely, it seems that Egoyan has made a significant step forward in his style, so that he now seems as interested in the journey as he has always been in the destination.
Mitchell Stevens (Ian Holm) is a lawyer who arrives in a small Canadian town to persuade those left grieving for the children killed in a recent bus crash to sue for negligence. As he moves between different sets of mourning parents, various secrets about the town are gradually uncovered, though Egoyan's lyrical, understated approach is less a David Lynch-style burrowing beneath the surface than a cool, cerebral stake-out of the soul. It's a beautiful film that deals with difficult subjects - incest, alienation, grief - in a disconcertingly straightforward manner, and if you feel abandoned when the picture ends - it seems to finish mid-sentence - you're grateful that Egoyan leaves you with so much to chew over, and dream about.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments