SOURCE: “How Sweet It Is: His New Film Signals a Change of Direction for Egoyan,” in Maclean's, Vol. 110, No. 36, September 8, 1997, pp. 60–61.

In the following review, Johnson compares The Sweet Hereafter with Egoyan's previous works, stating that Hereafter features more natural and fully developed characters.

Inevitably, directors get tired of their own movies. And after finishing The Sweet Hereafter, Atom Egoyan watched it so many times that by the time it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last May, he no longer knew what to make of it. But last month—rested after vacationing in Italy with his wife, actress Arsinee Khanjian, and their four-year-old son, Arshile—the Canadian film-maker was ready to take a fresh look at The Sweet Hereafter. The occasion was a private screening in Toronto for the Directors Guild of Canada. Halfway through, the fire alarm went off. There was no fire, but the theatre...