`MARGARET'S MUSEUM' DIGS INTO MINERS' LIVES.

Byline: Amy Dawes Daily News Film Critic

There's something both horrifying and mesmerizing about the lives led by the hardscrabble coal miners' families on this movie's Cape Breton Island, where the regular scream of a siren signals the latest mine collapse and sends everyone rushing over to find out who will be bringing corpses home to wash in their kitchens.

Set off the coast off Nova Scotia in the 1940s, ``Margaret's Museum'' tells the tale of a giant high-spirited Scotsman Neil (Clive Russell) who arrives in Glace Bay and brings love, lust and brief hope to the life of Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter), a rebellious islander who disdains the bitter outcome of the local way of life.

Into the lives of Margaret and her family comes the giant Neil, who dances, plays bagpipes and swears he'll never work under the ground. That suits Margaret, who daily contends with the lacerating complaints of her mother (Kate Nelligan), who has lost husband and son to the mines; the fragile health of her grandfather (Peter Boretski), who has to be regularly thumped on the back to clear his lungs of coal dust; and the dim prospects for her gifted young brother, Jimmy (Craig Olejnik), whose only future locally would be working in the mines.

The two idealists marry and erect a marvelous, light-filled house built from scrap lumber at the water's edge, but when Neil loses his job as a dishwasher, there's barely enough money for the two of them to eat, let alone start a family. ``I won't go to your funeral!'' Margaret wails when Neil comes home with a miners' helmet.

Thus begins the inexorable progress toward the movie's rather startling and stinging ending, which can't be revealed, but it's safe to say that a visit to Margaret's museum would be one you'd never forget.

Writer-director Mort Ranson and his collaborators have woven a rich, absorbing and deeply human saga from the bare-bones lives of these isolated people, one that brims with black humor and a haunting lyricism.

Based on ``The Glace Bay Miners' Museum'' and other short stories by writer Sheldon Currie, who was born to a mining family in that place, the Canadian and British co-production would have benefited from a most explicit on-screen description of the story's geographical location. As is, one could get through most of this movie thinking that it's set in Wales or Ireland, and not grasping the island isolation that so affected the local economy.

Other than that, it's a gem of a production. Bonham Carter (``Howards End,'' ``A Room With a View'') takes an atypical role as a headstrong and earthy oddball outsider who matures in unexpected directions, and it pays off. Perhaps now she'll be considered for edgier roles.

Kate Nelligan (``The Prince of Tides'') gives a fierce, lacerating performance as the oppressively bitter mother, and Canadian TV star Kenneth Welsh is her excellent opposite, resilient and deeply human as Uncle Angus, who stands by the widowed family before committing his own marvelous act of rebellion.

The literate screenplay is ripe with potent dialogue, and the Celtic soundtrack adds more haunting dimension.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Margaret's Museum'' (R; sexuality).

The stars: Helena Bonham Carter, Kate Nelligan, Clive Russell, Kenneth Welsh, Craig Olejnik.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Mort Ransen. Written by Gerald Wexler and Mort Ransen, based on the ``The Glace Bay Miner's Museum'' and other stories by Sheldon Currie. Produced by Mort Ransen, Christopher Zimmer, Claudio Luca and Steve Clarke-Hall. Released by CFP.

Running time: Two hours, 58 minutes.

Playing: Beverly Center Cineplex, Beverly Hills.

Our rating: Three Stars.