Atom Egoyan's masterpiece, “The Sweet Hereafter”, is about a small town and is a must see for everyone. The story and the characters ring true in this film more than any other. It is hard to believe any aspect is created. This is good story telling at its best.
Egoyan's genius reveals itself in any number of scenes but most memorable are the reciting of the poem an the discussions with the grief-stricken parents. On the verge of melodramatic soap operatics the people respond in such human manners that we want to laugh and cry at the same time. We feel what they feel. This is not simply the writing and directing but the acting as well. You want to hear them speak. You want to relate. You want to feel. You want to live. You aren't alone in this.
A lawyer travels to a town to represent the anger of parents who used to have children. This lawyer is righteous. This lawyer is almost Abraham. The lawyer is a hardass who doesn't like people getting screwed around, who has a chip on his shoulder and believes there are no such things as accidents. The lawyer takes on the burden of moral responsibility. His motivation, however, is questionable.
He is on a crusade to punish anyone who does not do their job with integrity. His crusade is personal though. His own daughter is a drug addict whom he has disowned. Are we to consider it noble for him to launch a crusade against people who remind him of himself? He did his best with his daughter and failed.
This is what we do to ourselves though. We grow to hate and despise what we used to be. When we see something bad in another person it is usually something that we have been before, this is how we recognize it so well. It is human nature to do these things, as well a to harp on our failures ignoring our successes. No matter how large a success or how many we are haunted by failures and, more importantly, we haunt ourselves with our failures.
Should this lawyer's motivation be brought into question? If one is doing what is right, who really cares if it's personal? It is still very interesting to watch him try and purge his demons from other people.
The story includes a reading from Robert Browning's “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”, which is a wonderful poem. An analysis of that poem and this movie can go hand in hand. Retribution and punishment through the taking away of that which is most precious to people, the children. The future.
The future cannot exist when children are taken away from us. The future cannot last when the people have become the rats, when the infestation is within ourselves and the solution isn't as simple as piping them out and sending them off. The future cannot last when the idea of a community and helping one another involves weighing safety of children against insurance settlements. Were truth and money collide. The future does not last forever, and yet, it does, whether here or the sweet hereafter, it continues.
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