Product Details

• Actors: Rebecca Jenkins, Hollis McLaren, Nicola Lipman, Molly Parker, Joseph Rutten
• Directors: Wiebke Von Carolsfeld
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Film Movement
• DVD Release Date: January 1, 2005
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0006OJH5O
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #106,968 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

MARION BRIDGE - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful chamber piece, October 17, 2009

By 

C. Ackerman (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marion Bridge (DVD)

_Marion bridge_ is a difficult movie to comment on: it is so modest, so delicate, that it feels like any praise will crush it. It's a low budget family drama whose basic plot outline is an utter cliche: a dysfunctional family reassembles under the same roof in the face of death and secrets are revealed, with characters coping to varying degrees as the funeral approaches. Total cliche. The worst you could imagine from an obscure chick flick. Then, on top of that, the characters mumble and whisper a lot and there are no subtitles. And the incredibly sensual Molly Parker not only manages to keep her clothes on, she looks downright haggard. Furthermore, the opening scene is unrelated to the rest of the film, except in a symbolic sense that isn't particularly obvious unless you listen to the commentary track. So this film starts at quite a deficit.

And yet... in its own quiet way, this film is near perfect. The only clumsy moment is a scene in which two characters lie about their names. The acting, which the other people comment on, is realism at its finest. The sisters physically look like sisters and interact with such palpable tension that I'd be afraid to be related to any of the actresses. I've seen the film maybe five times and there's one confusing cut and one place where the clouds in the background change between cuts. Otherwise, everything is how it should be. Even a detail that could be near impossible to control--Molly Parker's pupils contracting to almost nothing when she's looking at a character who has harmed her tremendously--is done right. And despite the hackneyed conceit upon which the screenplay is hung, at every point at which it could have gone the easy route towards the safe and predictable, it chooses something different, something quietly more authentic.

When I read the other reviews, I had the feeling that people emotionally quit watching about ten to fifteen minutes from the end. They describe a well-acted tragedy, a grim, slow-going, tough to sit through affair and make no mention of the ending. At the risk of semi-spoiler, I have to challenge this view. Yes, the characters have had horrific lives, and they often fail to connect to each other and many times don't even seem to want to.

I'll concede all that. But I suspect that the realism evokes such raw feelings that it's easy for your mind to go off on emotional autobiographical tangents and lose the film. Even if the viewer's personal life has been calmer than that of any of the characters, pretty much everyone has probably had to at least once go through a deathwatch, with the bedridden person, the awkwardness, the bottles of pills, the rented hospital bed, the oxygen tank, etc. This movie really has the potential to open the floodgates.

Yet I consider this one of the most feel-good movies ever made. Why? Because it's ending is credible in its tone. Because it doesn't force its ending down your throat like some after-school or Disney special or any movie with too much of a budget and a director who can't resist hitting you over the head with telling you how you should feel. Instead, starting with a morose, seemingly untalented, character giving a beautiful rendition of `Amazing grace', the film glides towards a bittersweet ending. Then in the closing seconds, the camera simply pans right and the meaning of everything changes. Then the camera pans again, this time towards the sky-- and credits. It takes a moment to appreciate minor victory the characters have won against themselves, against their own pasts. But then you're left with a delicately triumphant mood lingers for the rest of the day.

I would also recommend the commentary track with the director and Molly Parker. Not only does it demonstrate how so much of what the film does right was done quite intentionally and with great care, it points out a lot of local color that you might not see otherwise. (Indeed, it points out how there's a moment of confusion because one of the character's doesn't get the local color.)

If you're not familiar with the Cape Breton area of Canada (which I'm not), I would suggest using Google maps or a similar program to see where Marion Bridge and Sydney, Nova Scotia are. Geography is important but it's never explained.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Small Story, Well Told, April 20, 2006

By 

Bart King (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marion Bridge (DVD)

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.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well acted Canadian drama, September 25, 2006

By 

M. Keogh (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marion Bridge (DVD)

"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!