Lately I've been seeing just about every movie that someone recommends to me, and "the Sweet Hereafter" has been on quite a few of my friends' lists. I was excited about finally seeing the movie.

What I found was less compelling than I expected. None of the characters were really engaging, and perhaps that's the aim of the film. But I honestly can't understand how this movie could have made people cry. Who did they identify with? Ian Holm's character, whose grimacing and silence set my teeth on edge, and whose attitude toward the families of the accident victims was so entirely self-serving? Sarah Polley's character, who almost never displayed any spark of life? And even if I had begun to identify with one character or another, I would have been instantly put off by the trite lines that kept coming out of their mouths. "Let me direct your rage?" Give me a break.

Not to imply too much of a connection between the films, but if you want to feel the terror and rage surrounding a tragedy as though you were there living through it, see "Boys Don't Cry." The words that go unsaid in that film are worth much more than those voiced-over or spoken all too clearly in "the Sweet Hereafter."

I just chanced upon this film. Having watched a film called "Before and After" with Liam Neeson and Meryl Streep (a film that doesn't work well at all), I got to see how tragedy and loss can be portrayed in a sensitive, gut wrenching way. The idea that after a terrible incident (a school bus going through the ice in a far northern clime) we can't ever recover those lost sits atop this. The lawyer, who comes to town to try to earn money for himself and get the insurance companies to shell over a settlement, has his own ghosts, a drug using daughter who may be dying of AIDS, whom he has bailed out time after time. He is a beaten man, trying to do his job when his heart is not in it. We get to meet the families of the lost and survivors and their stories echo their confusion and sadness. The driver, herself, is a model citizen, and she is at the end of each chain. This is portrayed with such subtlety and such a delicate touch that it totally involves us. This is truly an outstanding movie.