Cheap Margaret's Museum (Video) (Helena Bonham Carter, Kate Nelligan) (Mort Ransen) Price

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Customer Reviews of Margaret's Museum

Human Limits
How much can a woman take? Apparently lots. However, for Margaret the questions transcends that - she lost everything and she simply wants to keep something. Helena Bonham Carter is more than her typical Merchant and Ivory cardboard character - she really stratches with this one and comes out stronger for it. It is shame that this movie along with other greats like Firelight and Jude did not achieve the commercial success that movies of this quality deserve. It is a painful movie, yet it is heartwarming and really has something for everyone. On a dreary rainy day, slide this into your machine and surrender to Margaret's world and into the soul of a brave woman. Carter is up there with Marceau and Winslet and delivers an Oscar caliber performance.

Miguel Llora

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A Canadian Labour Movie About Life in the Coal Mines
Margaret MacNeil is a woman living on Canada's east coast in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia during the turn of the century. Glace Bay is a coal-mining town, and Margaret knows the horrors of the mines. Her father and brother were both killed in mining accidents, and her grandfather's lungs are completely ruined by working with coal for years. From such experiences, Margaret hates the coals mines and vows never to get involved with a man who works with coal. That is hard to do, when all the town's employment opportunities exist in the mines.

Margaret marries a dishwasher, Neil Curry, and begins her life as a married woman. Though they are poor, they are also happy. However, within their first year as a married couple Neil is fried from his job at a Chinese restaurant, and forced to find work in the mines. Margaret, upset by his new career, leaves her husband--a man who once vowed never to work the mines again. She eventually forgives him, as he was left with no choice, as Glace Bay had few employment opportunities. Meanwhile, Margaret's 16 year old brother dropped out of school and got a job in the mines too.

Margaret's life is turned upside down, as her uncle gets arrested for causing a fire in the company store after finally realizing how he has been exploited by his employer for years. Not long after, a rockslide in the mines kills her brother and husband. Distracted by the sirens of emergency, she ran to the mine, where she learned of the death to her loved ones. During this time, her grandfather died in his bed because Margaret was not home to hit his back during cough attacks caused by miner's lung.

The following is unbelievable, as she removes her dead brother's genitalis, husband's fingers and grandfather's lungs. She then displayed those body parts at her home as a reminder of the horror of the mines.

After being in a mental institution for a couple of years, Margaret is freed. She comes home and is confronted by her mother, who disowns Margaret and Glace Bay. Margaret goes to the half-built home that her husband began after they had got engaged. She turns her home to a museum, to preserve the memory of her family while living in utter isolation.

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enchanting, slightly off-beat little charmer of a film
Set in a coal mining village in 1950's Nova Scotia, this little gem of a film holds one to his seat throughout the movie. Helena Bonham Carter brillantly portrays a common girl who is at once confused and sure of herself. If you liked her previous performances, you'll love this film. END