Winter in July Blogathon – The Sweet Hereafter (1997)

This is my second of three reviews for the Winter in July Blogathon being run by Debra over at Moon in Gemini.

Tnx for letting me take part!

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“Something’s happening that’s taking our children away. ” – Mitchell Stephens

Number of Times Seen – 3 (Jan 2000, 30 Jul 2007 and 9 Jul 2018)

Brief Synopsis – Following a tragedy, a lawyer travels to a small secluded town in Canada to try and convince the townspeople to hire him t sue the company responsible for the accident.

My Take on it – This is a film that I have enjoyed each time that I’ve seen it despite the fact that it is quite powerful and disturbing at the same time.

The wintery setting of the film helps to add to the atmosphere of the story and helps us get an even better understanding of everything that is truly going on.

The story is paced quite well and they slowly reveal to us important facts about all of the events portrayed in bits and pieces along the way.

The characters are all quite different in their attitudes and reactions to events and this helps us gather up all the pieces to this puzzle as we try to understand the overall picture of everything being described to us.

The cast is great especially since they all must give subtle yet powerful performances.

The two standout for me were Ian Holm and Bruce Greenwood who are both superb.

Really love the way that this film uses the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin in its quest to try and help us understand some of the situations presented.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Atom Egoyan’s films, but this one is truly special and he was quite deserving of his Oscar nomination for Best Director for this film.

Bottom Line – Great film that moves along at a nice pace slowly letting us understand everything that is really going on. The various characters that this story spotlights are all very diverse and each helps us get a chance to see how various pieces of a puzzle can come together to tell us something quite interesting about the story as a whole. Great cast all give very subtle yet powerful performances especially Holm and Greenwood. Love the analogy of the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin to help us understand how and why certain events occur here. Love the way that the winter climate is so integral to the storyline and allows us to get a much clearer picture of everything that happens here. Egoyan was quite deserving of getting a nomination for Best Director at the Oscars for this film because it is a richly told story. Highly Recommended

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Author Russell Banks went on record saying that he thought the film was an improvement over his novel. (From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy (9/10)

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