The Sweet Hereafter

“There is no such thing as the simple truth.”

In a small mountain town in Canada, a school bus leaves the road and more than a dozen children die. Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm), a lawyer from the city, comes to persuade the grieving families to sue, going door to door with a kind of practiced sympathy. Atom Egoyan follows Nicole Burnell (Sarah Polley), a teenage survivor, as she carries the loss of the bus and the damage done to her before it, which the town doesn't see.