Exotica/The Sweet Hereafter

I was intrigued by the similarities between Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter. The two movies are very different, but I noticed that Sarah Polley and Bruce Greenwood were not only in both movies, but seemed to reprise their roles in TSH. Sarah Polley plays the girl who babysits for Greenwood's character's kid. Greenwood's characters in both movies have lost a wife and child/children in separate tragedies. At the end of both movies, there is a flashback to when the child/children were alive, as they are being babysat for. The last shot in both movies is of a babysitter (Mia Kirshner in one, Sarah Polley in another), her back to us. I can't help but wonder if Atom Egoyan likes babysitter scenes. I wonder why, when the original plan for the ending in TSH (the ending in the book) fell through, he fell back on the same kind of ending that was in Exotica. Was he trying to link the two movies? Or was it subconscious? I've heard that writers often have obsessions, or recurring themes, and I was wondering if that's what those two ending scenes were.

And, by the way, did the announcer at the club (don't know his real name) remind anyone else of Nicole's father in TSH? Not just in personality, but also in looks?


I also wanted to note that there is a character named Zoe in both movies, but that's inconsequential and completely coincidental, seeing as how TSH was based on a book, and not written by Atom Egoyan.

By the way, I liked both movies, but I didn't fully get Exotica. That's not to say I didn't understand the basic premise. And I did predict the ending within the first few minutes. With the very first scene in the field, it was obvious they were searching for a dead body, and it was obvious that it was the daughter of Francis, seeing as how the search was juxtaposed with family videos of Lisa (whenever you see family videos in a movie, chances are, a person in those videos is dead), and I connected the line where Christina said she babysat for the girl with the fact that Sarah Polley was a babysitter. Then, much later, I figured out that the guy in the bandanna was the club announcer (though it took me awhile, but I did figure it out before it was revealed). So I did get the movie and I, personally, found it extremely easy to follow, though I can see it confusing people. It's just there were parts I didn't get, like the relevance of the homosexual guy, for instance. And it bothered me that Mia Kirshner was underaged during filming (from what I heard), so I was not able to watch that movie as carefully.


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"In violent times, you shouldn't have to sell your soul."