Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
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.
Atom Egoyan's adaptation of Russell Banks' novel is a masterwork of fragmented, non-linear storytelling that earns its critical reputation. Ian Holm's portrayal of the lawyer Mitchell Stephens is quietly devastating, anchored by a parallel narrative about his drug-addicted daughter that gives the film profound emotional resonance. Peter Mettler's cinematography is strikingly composed, using the wintry British Columbia landscape as both setting and metaphor. The plot's non-linear structure — weaving past and present, the Pied Piper myth, and the lawyer's personal grief — is handled with exceptional intelligence. Novelty is solid but not quite singular; Egoyan had established his fragmented style in prior works (Exotica, The Adjuster), so this feels like a refinement rather than a revelation. The ending, while quietly affecting and thematically coherent, is deliberately muted and may feel unresolved to some — effective but not the film's strongest element.