The opening shot of Atom Egoyan's majestic, heartfelt adaptation of The Sweet Hereafter is a slow tracking shot that moves to the right along a wood panel wall until it slowly reveals a serene, delicate portrait of a seemingly happy family - a wife and husband curled up together with their young infant lying between them.   The shot is a memory, or perhaps an idealization of a time long past, and keys the audience into one of the key themes in the film - in a period of post-tragedy, how do human beings grieve and process the pain and regret that is constantly rehashed through memories?  Non-chronologically following four characters in a small town following a tragic school bus accident, the film focuses on the periods prior to and following the accident and uses the actual accident as an impetus for studying the nature of human suffering, rather than a singular narrative event carefully placed for maximum emotional impact.  Ian Holm is remarkable as Mitchell, a lawyer who shows up in town to start a class-action law suit with the victims of the accident by trying to find fault with anyone who could be blamed for it.  His arrival stirs up the town by forcing them to reflect on the tragedy, which inevitably creates confusion and bitterness, but his own secrets are behind the motives for his actions.

The non-chronological unfolding of events allows Egoyan to avoid simplifying these situations into direct cause-and-effect situations and instead molds the past, present, and future into a tapestry of the cyclical nature of human suffering.  Each of the four points-of-view that we experience have different methods of processing their pain and coming to terms with their grief - Nicole (Sarah Polley), who becomes crippled in the accident, becomes tired of the manipulation and dishonesty that surrounds her as her father uses her condition for monetary gain; Dolores, the bus driver whose entire life was based around these children and driving her bus and now wants only her fellow townspeople to believe in her innocence; Wendell, the drunk who believes that the investigation and law suit are methods to avoid dealing with the reality that sometimes senseless things happen and innocent people needlessly die; and Mitchell, whose inability to cope with his daughter's incessant self-destructive behavior has made him feel so guilty and helpless, that he holds onto the string belief that there is always someone to blame for a tragedy.

What makes The Sweet Hereafter so emotionally potent is how the four stories each provide a new perspective on the events and the infinite ways people deal with, or deny, their grief.  It never begs for our sympathy or pity, instead focusing on the multitude of actions and emotions as the truth comes to the surface.  For such a devastating film, it's surprisingly subtle - it really snuck up on me during my first viewing, so much so that I watched it again a few days later just to process everything I had just seen - and the pacing which at first allows us ample time to soak in the serene, picturesque setting leaves room for the moral and ethical challenges that dominate the final hour.  By almost completely bypassing the brutality of the accident and its immediate impact, The Sweet Hereafter is about more than just one event, but an invigorating study of the multitude of ways the mind deals with adverse circumstances individually and within the confines of a community.