Margaret's Museum

Margaret's Museum is a critically-acclaimed 1995 British-Canadian dark film drama, directed by Mort Ransen and based on Sheldon Currie's novel The Glace Bay Miners' Museum. Set in the 1940s in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, it tells the story of a young girl living in a coal mining town where the death of men from accidents in "the pit" (the mines) has become almost routine. Margaret MacNeil (Helena Bonham Carter) has already lost her father an... more

Margaret's Museum is a critically-acclaimed 1995 British-Canadian dark film drama, directed by Mort Ransen and based on Sheldon Currie's novel The Glace Bay Miners' Museum. Set in the 1940s in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, it tells the story of a young girl living in a coal mining town where the death of men from accidents in "the pit" (the mines) has become almost routine. Margaret MacNeil (Helena Bonham Carter) has already lost her father and an older brother and for her, life alone would be prefereable to marrying a mine worker — that is until the charming Neil Currie (Clive Russell) shows up. Against the wishes of her hard-bitten mother (Kate Nelligan) they marry, but before long financial woes lead to his doing what every other uneducated young man does in the town: take a job underground. His death in the mine drives Margaret to a mental breakdown and in her surreal world she decides to create a "special" museum to the memories of all those who have died as a result of the... less