Alternate Best Supporting Actor 1997: Bruce Greenwood in The Sweet Hereafter

Bruce Greenwood did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Billy Ansel in The Sweet Hereafter. 

 

Bruce Greenwood is one of those character actors that it seems like you can always depend on in the film. He typically fills a certain type, yet fills that certain type with considerable ease and often a depth that makes you instantly accept him no matter who the character or the setting may be. He is an ideal character actor in that sense because you can place him there, he will not distract, but rather just create a natural depth from his mere presence. Now more frequently than not Greenwood is typically cast as a "white collar" authority figure of some type, and he plays these roles well. One filmmaker that I'm sure eventually helped Greenwood get cast in those roles, was Atom Egoyan, although Egoyan actually cast him in more risky positions. The first is his remarkable performance as a mentally broken man in 94's Exotica and once again here in Egoyan's greatest film. A notable change, to begin with, is a rare instance where Greenwood is playing a more working-class type, with a mustache that just seems to emphasize a man who has to be doing some kind of physical excursion for a living.

Greenwood slides right into this role just as he does those many suits he is usually tasked to wear, in a role that we first see in a fairly low-key way, though we already know of the trauma that will realize itself shortly. Greenwood's performance effectively embodies a certain salt of the earth type just in his whole demeanor. He moves a bit more exactly, his posture interestingly a bit more upright even though he's already pretty upright as is. Chronologically we see him engaging in an affair with a local woman, however really we just see a man going about his life. Greenwood doesn't put anything on it, he shows a man existing as he does, and in that there is a whole lot of life just in his natural manner. This adds a great deal then to us finding his Billy Ansel as we find he is a man who has lost two of his kids in the tragic school bus accident at the center of the film. Ansel's experience is even more notable because he was directly behind the bus when it went off the road and into a frozen lake. 

So the actual accident scene actually is largely based upon Greenwood's performance as the first is watching the bus and you see him interacting with his kids at the back of the bus. Greenwood is wonderful in portraying just the utmost earnest love at that moment and shows bluntly a loving father. His reaction then of true horror when seeing the bus go off truly is remarkable, followed only by absolutely devastating work as we see Ansel's face slowly fall into pained despair as the tragedy unfolds in front of him. Every moment of the tragedy is seen within Greenwood's eyes bluntly revealing the intensity of the pain at that moment. The Sweet Hereafter of course follows the unexpected narrative by taking us through it from the perspective of the lawyer (Ian Holm), theoretically exploiting everyone's pain. Although we take a greater sympathy for the man due to seeing his own tragedy involving his drug addict daughter. Greenwood's Ansel delivers what likely would be one's reaction without that perspective which is suspicion and anger towards the man seeking to profit from the tragedy. Greenwood is excellent in his scene with Holm, he has such potency in his sharp delivery which punctuates the vicious hate in his eyes that disregards the exploiter at a moment's notice. Greenwood is great in the scene, but even more amazing in his scene of confronting another family to try to get them to drop the lawsuit. Greenwood is fantastic by just speaking every line as these cold honest truths. He shows a man who genuinely has no desire to relive the tragedy and hates the idea of any profit from him. He brings an unquestioned intensity, but an intensity with such a connection to his emotional loss. He is able to articulate the sense of a man who will not compromise bluntly, yet within that the man's heartbreak is ever present within the bluntness. Although a relatively brief performance, Greenwood delivers an absolutely striking portrayal of a man wrestling with his grief both as he's trying to come to terms with it, and ever so powerfully as he sees it right in front of him.