Atom Egoyan’s examination of a small town’s all-consuming grief following a tragic school bus accident, and the motives of attorney Mitchell Stephens, who is determined to direct the community’s rage by affixing blame on those with the deepest pockets. Using his own personal loss as a way of linking himself to the townspeople, Stephens’s probe of the town’s shared tragedy causes many individuals to look into their own pasts, which hide many darker secrets that, brought to light, are as crippling as the accident itself.
—John Drew