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The Sweet Hereafter

By Atom Egoyan from the novel by Russell Banks - Film

FilmScreen

Roles

  • Mitchell Stevens - Adult (36-50), Senior (>50), Male

About this piece

Mitchell's story of a time his daughter almost died.

Summary

Mitchell Stevens (Ian Holms), is a lawyer who tries to profit from a tragic accident that happened in a small community when a school bus crashed, killing all the children inside. He also has family problems as his daughter Zoe is a drug addict and contantly asking him for money. Here he is on a plane, he just met an old acquaintance and tells her a story of one time that his daughter almost died when she was 3 years old. They were on vacation and staying at a cottage when one morning Zoe woke up all swollen, unable to breathe. Turns out a nest of black widow baby spiders was under the mattress. He called a doctor who told him there was going to be a good chance that her throat would have closed before they reached the hospital and he would have had to cut her throat to let her breathe....at the end of the story he says he didn't have to as they reached the hospital on time. As he remembers this he cries...

Tone

CryingReminiscing life story/Telling a story

Use cases

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