CINEMA: SHORT TAKES: THE SWEET HEREAFTER

ASCENDING INTO GRACE

No one knows why the school bus swerved off the road and into the lake. All that is known by the inhabitants of the profoundly isolated small town in British Columbia, already buried in snow and melancholy, is that 14 of their children are dead and many more are injured. After such tragedy, what redemption?

None, of course. Unless you can find cold comfort in cold cash. Which is why a sardonic God invented negligence lawyers. Russell Banks, author of the novel from which Atom Egoyan derived The Sweet Hereafter, has, however, improved on His handiwork, creating in Mitchell Stephens (Ian...

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