One of the fiercest expressions of soul is righteous indignation. That quality is hurrahed in Margaret's Museum, an impressive Canadian film co-written and directed by Mort Ransen.
It is set during the 1940s on Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in a town controlled by a mining company. After her brother and father were killed in an underground disaster, feisty Margaret MacNeil (Helena Bonham Carter) wants nothing to do with the town's leading employer. She falls in love with and marries Neil Currie (Clive Russell), a giant of a man who plays the bagpipes and composes tunes. Although Margaret's bitter mother (Kate Nelligan) tells her that "the world's a bad place and it's getting worse," she struggles to find her small portion of happiness.
But when Neil loses his job and has to descend into the bowels of the earth along with her younger brother (Craig Olejnik), Margaret expects the worst to happen and it does. She comes up with a symbolic rebellion against the mining company that expresses her righteous indignation.
Helena Bonham Carter's performance is a tour de force expressing her character's rebellious spirit, eroticism, and creativity. The literate screenplay by Gerald Wexler and Mort Ransen celebrates the dignity and soulfulness of individuals forced in hard times to work in hellish conditions.