The Sweet Hereafter

In a small Canadian town a school bus goes into an icy pond and most of the children die. A lawyer arrives and proposes a class action to the families. The film shows the accident once, at a distance; the narrative is really about grief that cannot be shared. The lawyer's relationship with his own daughter runs alongside and the film does not try to redeem him either. The testimony of a girl who survived is the hinge. Atom Egoyan wrote and directed, adapting Russell Banks's novel. Ian Holm and Sarah Polley lead. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes. A real warning: the film is about the deaths of children and carries an incest thread. The second is not shown directly but is made plain.