DVD review: The Sweet Hereafter (Artificial Eye)

Ian Holm plays an ambulance-chasing lawyer charged with winning compensation for 14 families who have lost their children as a result of a school bus accident on an icy road in small-town British Columbia. Once in their midst, the solemn lawyer, whose relationship with his own daughter is deeply problematic, unearths terrible secrets about the community.

Atom Egoyan’s 1997 masterpiece – released on Blu-Ray – omits the auteur’s usual visual quirks and more or less plays this tragic tale Geoffrey-Boycott straight.

A bold, immensely moving adaptation of Russell Banks’s novel.