May. 10, 2003 - 10:36 pm
i saw this one the other day as i was looking for something new on the IMDb top 250 list. i don't think i had ever heard of it before, but as i watched it i almost felt like i had seen bits of it before. i think maybe i had half-watched the last 20 minutes of it or something because it all looked very familiar. it's a drama about how everyone's personal problems are very in-depth and complex. it sort of has a cold lonliness to it in the same way that The Pledge (2001) with Jack Nicholson does. it's balanced out just enough though by the Sarah Polley character to keep it from being overwhelmingly negative.
the film is told in a very mixed timeline structure, but centers around the aftermath of an accident involving a small town. one snowy morning, all of the town's small children were killed in a bus accident. a lawyer, played by Ian Holm, comes to the town to try to get a law suit going for all of the families involved. his own problems also play a large part in the film and his own pursuits of justice for families that have been destroyed. his drug addict daughter has made the problems of others become his problems. he carries out his duty with a vengeance. many of the town's families are also displayed including Sarah Polley's character who lives with her young father and mother and babysits for neighbors. one night she reads the children the pied piper short story and, through voiceovers, this story is applied to her own life and her distorted relationship with her father.
i really really liked this movie obviously. the pied piper story is one of the best features of the film for me. i really like it when childish things are made synonymous with day to day occurences. also the soundtrack was awesome. it has sort of a sad folk music feel to it, and the fact that some of the songs were actually sung by Sarah Polley really made it for me. (she is the singer of a town band in the film.) i think she's likely to win an Oscar one day, although probably not for Best Song.