Marion Bridge

It took me some time but finally I watched this Wiebke von Carolsfeld film that has excellent performances and a story that is compelling but not distinctive, as is a story that has been told before and unfortunately lacks any real surprises or memorable moments.

Adapted from a play by Daniel MacIvor the movie tells about a dying mother that brings prodigal daughter Agnes (Molly Parker) back to tiny town Sydney in Nova Scotia. There she’s welcomed with suspicion by her two sisters: grim, long-suffering from a failed marriage Theresa (Rebecca Jenkins) and repressed lesbian Louise (Stacy Smith) a couch potato who is slowly gathering the courage to declare her feelings to her closest friend but never does and the situation is solved in a quite funny way.

The movie has nice cinematography, great performances by the three leads and good tech specs, but perhaps its main problem is with the story that once all the characters are excellently introduced, it doesn’t know where to take them and consequently the story becomes highly predictable.

What draw me to watch this movie is that I have to see all Ellen Page previous films and she’s here playing Joanie, Agnes most hidden secret and the reason for her past bad behavior. Here we have a very young Ellen Page with an outstanding performance and great screen presence that while she’s in the screen, totally steals the scenes. She’s so good that from all lead and secondary actresses with good performances only Page won the ACTRA Maritimes Award for Outstanding Performance – Female at the 2003 ACTRA Awards.

The film won many awards in Canadian festivals like Best Canadian Fist Feature Film at the 2002 Toronto fest; and was nominated for a Tiger Award at the 2003 Rotterdam International fest.

I was amazed by Ellen Page’s outstanding performance at such an early age and now I realize that her Oscar nomination came after a long string of nominations and awards for truly excellent performances. She was an accomplished performer when she was a kid and teenager; and definitively is -and hopefully will continue to be- an outstanding younger actress with many memorable performances. If you’re an Ellen Page fan this movie absolutely is a must be seen for you.

Somehow I imagine that this movie is best suited for women that enjoy touching all female lead cast dramas and a story with no surprises but with great performances.

Enjoy!!