in " the sweet hereafter , " writer/director atom egoyan takes us beyond the tragedy of death into the tragedy of living . 
he shows us how it isn't dying that hurts , but rather the pain of living in the hereafter of death , and dealing with the loss and grief that it brings . 
on a cold winter day in a small , isolated town in british columbia , a school bus full of children slides off the highway and onto a frozen lake , where it cracks through the ice and sinks . 
fourteen children die , and numerous others are hurt . 
for the residents of this small town , all of whose children were on that bus , it is an earth-shattering event that resolutely alters their lives . 
they have always relied on each other in the past to deal with heartache and pain , but it seems that this tragedy is more than they can handle . 
alberta and risa walker , who own a local motel and lost their child in the accident , hire an attorney named mitchell stephens ( ian holm ) to bring a lawsuit against someone , anyone for responsibility . 
the bus driver , dolores driscoll ( gabrielle rose ) , is a kindly woman who loved the children and , although she lives with a burden of guilt , is not held responsible for the accident . 
the bus seems to have simply slipped on some ice , and there was nothing should could do to prevent it . 
however , according to stephens , there are no " accidents " in life , and someone will pay for this tragedy , whether that be the manufacturer of the bus or the guardrail the bus broke through . 
he goes through the town , approaching the parents who have lost children , asking them to join the class action suit and find vent for their anger . 
and , for his work , stephens will receive one-third of the settlement money . 
however , it is immediately apparent that stephens has little or no interest in the money . 
he is driven by something else , something deeper that he shares in common with the grieving parents . 
he has lost a child , too , but not in the same manner . 
his daughter , zoe ( caerthan banks ) , who once almost died in his arms as a young child after a spider bite , has been in and out of drug re-hab clinics and detox stations for ten years . 
she calls him on an irregular basis , begging him for money , but refusing to tell him what she needs it for . 
 " i don't know who i'm taking to , " he tells her . 
in his mind , his daughter is dead . 
the lawsuit is , to stephens , not only a way to mend the town's pain , but also his own . 
however , not everyone in town wants it to happen . 
billy ansell ( bruce greenwood ) , who was driving behind the bus when the accident happened and lost two children , wants nothing to do with it . 
he has already lost his wife , and he buries his grief in an affair with a married woman . 
he doesn't want to talk about the accident , and he sees the lawsuit as nothing more than the unnecessary opening of old wounds . 
to him , the town should be able to take care of its own pain , and it doesn't need outsiders like stephens getting in the way . 
central to " the sweet hereafter " is the tale of nicole burnell ( sarah polley ) , a teenage girl who dreams of being a singer before the accident turned her into " a wheelchair girl , " as she puts it . 
aside from stephens , nicole is the most complex character in the film , and it is she who ultimately decides the fate of the town and how the lawsuit will turn out . 
it is also her sad , haunted voice that we often hear on the soundtrack , reading robert browning's poem about the pied piper , and how when he led all the town's children away , one was left behind because he was crippled . 
obviously , nicole is that child , and she feels somehow betrayed that the rest of the town's children left her alone by dying in the wreck . 
her situation is further complicated because she is involved in a loving , but incestuous relationship with her father ( tom mccamus ) . 
there is only one , fleeting scene that suggests this relationship , but it is somehow tied into the final act of the film . 
of all the storylines in " the sweet hereafter , " this is the most complicated and unresolved , although its implications stretch throughout the entirety of the film . 
egoyan knows that the kinds of questions he brings up have no simple answers -- if any at all -- and he doesn't condescend to the audience by trying to neatly wrap it up . 
what egoyan has done in " the sweet hereafter " is really nothing short of miraculous . 
in his adaptation of the novel by russell banks , he has made a deeply moving film about a lawyer by transcending the pettiness of law and driving headlong into the deeper meaning of what is loss , and how pitiful monetary and material possessions are when compared to human life . 
egoyan has always been a talented , but distant and cerebral filmmaker whose work suffered only in that it felt so cold . 
 " the sweet hereafter " is quite the opposite ; egoyan's stylistic and narrative structures work brilliantly to heighten the impact of the natural emotion , and draw the audience into the tragedy . 
 " the sweet hereafter " seems to contain the combined emotional impact that all his other films lacked . 
the film is filled with beautiful , subtle performances from all the actors , especially ian holm as the lawyer and sarah polley as the sad child who was left behind . 
the beautiful , roving camerawork by paul sarossy and the haunting , melodic musical score by mychael danna ( both previous egoyan collaborators ) give the film a visual and aural cohesiveness with the thematic elements . 
like his earlier films , egoyan weaves together multiple storylines that form a blanketing whole . 
he works with time as a fluid substance , shifting back and forth between the past , the distant past , and the present with effortless ease . 
the actual bus wreck itself doesn't happen until midway through the film , but by that time the event has built up so much emotion that egoyan can film it from a distance with no graphic detail , and still have it carry great , devastating weight . 
because human life has become such a cheap commodity in movies , it is astounding that egoyan can convey so much heartbreak in such simple , direct terms . 
certainly one of the best films of 1997 , " the sweet hereafter " is a deeply rewarding , mystifying , and ultimately human film .