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Rating:  -
Not everyone will like this slow-moving coming home tale about three sisters and their dying mother and child abusing father who is now senile. Yes, it's pretty depressing, not to mention set in Nova Scotia, with scenery looking very bleak, indeed. Still, stick with it and you'll be rewarded. Of course, it all works out in the end. Nice jobs by the three sisters, and the alcoholic mom is actually one of the best acting jobs in the pic.
Rating:  -
`Marion Bridge' is a somber, independent film from '03 filmed against the backdrop of the rustic landscape of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Similar to the well respected `The Shipping News' from '02 the storyline deals with a dysfunctional family displaying all the neglect, abuse and legacy of heartache that comes with it.
While `Marion Bridge' lacks the big names and more dramatic storyline that accompanies `The Shipping News' the cast is superior nonetheless and the complicated, unresolved familial relationships played out between three sisters, a bedridden alcholic Mother, an estranged, deviant Father and a local teenage girl ring honest and believable.
This is definitely not a film for everyone but worth a viewing, especially if you enjoy dealing with emotional, complicated and unresolved relational issues that arise from living in a not so perfect world.
Rating:  -
This story comes alive because of Molly Parker's masterful ability to convey volumes of emotion with her many very subtle facial expressions. Of course this is true for many others of the characters she has so artfully played (Deadwood, Pure, and Kissed). The history of cinema offers an array of great actors. However, I challenge anyone to find another actor with such keen ability to appropriately detail so much with his or her subtle facial expressions as compared to Molly Parker. Probably, most viewers of her films are not really aware of how much is perceived through this particular communicative channel. That is because the acting is done so well and is so convincing without any hints of excesses.
Just try to imagine another actor in the part of Agnes (Molly Parker) as she confronts Joanie (Ellen Page). This is especially a critical point during the last two meetings in which the two were alone. It's difficult to imagine anyone other than Molly Parker so clearly conveying the many layers of conflicting raw emotions that were made so evident as the story unfolded.
Rating: -
"Marion Bridge," as the other reviewers have noted, is a drama about three estranged Irish-Canadian sisters, Theresa, Louise, and Agnes, who reunite to help their dying mother. Actually, only one sister is estranged, Agnes, played by Molly Parker, who apparently developed a serious drug/alcohol problem as a teenager and fled from her Cape Breton Island home to Toronto years ago and has since had only fleeting contact with her family. However, at film's beginning she has returned home, having recently accepted sobriety, in order to mend fences with her family.
It's not easy. Her oldest sister, Theresa (Rebecca Jenkins), resents Agnes' attempts to "meddle" into what she views as her responsibilities- the care of their mother and Louise. In addition, Louise (Stacy Smith), an unambitious tomboy whose life revolves around tv hockey games, looks upon Agnes' return as an unwanted disruption of normality and something to be tolerated until Agnes abandons them again. Agnes insists that she's changed and throws herself into the care of their dying mother (Maguerite McNeil) of whom we get the idea was not a good mother.
However, Agnes' return is not just about reuniting with her sisters, but also to confront the issue that undoubtedly drove her self-destructive streak. She's drawn continuously to a small antique shop to look upon Joanie, the sixteen year old girl who works and lives there (played by baby-faced Ellen Page who actually looks like she's twelve, and whose knock-out performance in the 2005 movie "Hard Candy" is what led me to watch "Marion Bridge"). Also, she and her sisters must confront the man whom they all blame for nearly ruining their lives- their father.
Overall, "Marion Bridge" is a well-acted and character driven film. However, it does have a "Lifetimey" feel about it, but that's a given when dealing with a low budget drama about familial relationships. Yet the film kept me interested in these characters, and I was particularly moved by the storyline involving Joanie and Agnes (Also minor SPOILER ALERT- I really liked how Agnes does the right thing as to that relationship). Molly Parker is very good in the role of Agnes, a woman whose made mistakes and is now trying to win back trust, and she's also stunning to look at.
This is the second movie I've seen set in Cape Breton Island this year. The other was Allan Moyle's delightfully quirky 1999 film, "New Waterford Girl." Since the two films share the same setting, they also share the same overcast skies and stark landscapes. I've heard some complaints about both films from Cape Breton Islanders about how skies above their homes are not perpetually overcast. However, I like it. As someone who grew up in northeast Ohio, where we didn't get that many sunny days either, I found the overcast skies comforting. Further, the landscapes exhibited in both films have me thinking of Cape Breton as a possible vacation destination. Finally, both films feature Allister MacGillivray's lovely "Song for the Mira" which I guess has become a sort of unofficial anthem for Cape Breton Island. It's such a pretty song. In "Marion Bridge" it is sung by Molly Parker, Stacy Smith, and Rebecca Jenkins, and they're not bad!
Rating: -
I have not read the book that MARION BRIDGE is based on, but the movie's plot is easy enough to summarize. A young woman returns to her hometown in Cape Breton to join her two sisters in caring for their ailing mother.
But while that may be the plot, the story is much deeper and richer. All three of the actresses playing the sisters are quite good at biting off their lines of dialogue with each other in that familiar familial way people have. And while the movie does ultimately have a few cheesy moments, the film's intelligent direction and the presence of the actresses (there are virtually no men in this film) more than make up for it.
By the way, don't be thrown off by the strangely awful jazz music that opens the film. It doesn't fit the tenor of the story (it almost seems like something from a horror film). The film itself has no violence, sex, or even strong language that I noticed.
SIDELIGHT: Our protagonist in this film, Molly Parker, is also a featured actress in the excellent HBO series DEADWOOD.
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