Synopsis
A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.
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Cast
- Ian HolmMitchell Stephens
- Sarah PolleyNicole Burnell
- Tom McCamusSam Burnell
- Gabrielle RoseDolores Driscoll
- Alberta WatsonRisa Walker
- Caerthan BanksZoe Stephens
- Maury ChaykinWendell Walker
- Stephanie MorgensternAllison
- Kirsten KieferleStewardess
- Arsinée KhanjianWanda Otto
Recommendations
- 100
Austin Chronicle
I can think of no other movie that has dared to analyze grief and its aftermath with such naked honesty and precision. - 100
ReelViews
This is truly a great film -- easily one of 1997's best. - 100
The A.V. Club
It's all presented in a detached style that's ultimately much more moving and truthful than any heartstring-slashing weeper. This may be Egoyan's best work yet, and it's surely one of the best films of the year. - 100
Film.com
It's the survivors of this tragedy that must make peace with their fate, and the film finally rests with them. - 100
Chicago Sun-Times
This is one of the best films of the year, an unflinching lament for the human condition. - 88
USA Today
A little movie almost perfectly realized. - 80
Washington Post
The chronological looseness is part of the pleasure of the piece, which magically reassembles in the last reel into something strong, lucid and compellingly powerful. - 80
The New York Times
The filmmaker creates schematic, intuitive images that hauntingly crystallize the characters' situations.
