70
New Times (L.A.) by Andy Klein
For all its mystery and its stylistic finesse, there is something vaguely plodding about The Sweet Hereafter.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
The New York Times by Elvis Mitchell
The filmmaker creates schematic, intuitive images that hauntingly crystallize the characters' situations.
100
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
This is truly a great film -- easily one of 1997's best.
80
It's the survivors of this tragedy that must make peace with their fate, and the film finally rests with them.
80
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
The power and reach of this undertaking are formidable.
100
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
Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten
I can think of no other movie that has dared to analyze grief and its aftermath with such naked honesty and precision.
88
A little movie almost perfectly realized.
100
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
This is one of the best films of the year, an unflinching lament for the human condition.
80
Washington Post by Stephen Hunter
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.