1840s England, acclaimed but overlooked fossil hunter Mary Anning and a young woman sent to convalesce by the sea develop an intense relationship, altering both of their lives forever.
Chuck says:
Mary Anning was a woman who was born during the wrong era. Brilliant and determined, she taught herself to be one of the most groundbreaking palaeontologists of her time. Living in the small village Lyme Regis along the English Channel, during the mid-19th century, she uncovered some of the most significant and complete fossils of prehistoric creatures on record. Living in poverty for most her life, she was never given the credit that was her due, her accomplishments obscured by those who would buy her finds and display them under their own names. Like so many innovators, her renown grew after her passing, her advances in her chosen field of science ultimately recognized. In addition, it is believed she was the inspiration for the popular tongue-twister, “She sells seashells by the seashore.”
Anning had a fascinating, regrettably overlooked life and I wish it had been explored a bit more in Francis Lee’s Ammonite, a movie that becomes more dubious the further I reflect upon it. Focusing on a small window in the scientist’s life, the film has little new to say regarding the way women were marginalized during this era, while its pace, akin to an archeological dig, doesn’t do it any favors. That the two graphic sex scenes between the two leads is getting a lot of press comes as no surprise due to their graphic nature and the fame of the stars that participate in them. That Lee invests a great deal of attention and focuses on these two sequences suggests that perhaps the rest of the movie was simply an excuse for this pair of moments.
Anning (Kate Winslet) is barely holding it together. Caring for her ailing mother (Gemma Jones), they are both still reeling from the death of her father. Eking out a living by selling fossils she’s found nearby, she’s in no position to turn down a proposition from Roderick Murchison (James McArdle), a hobbyist who is visiting Lyme Regis with his ailing wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan). Emotionally despondent due to a recent miscarriage, the young woman has been advised to bath in frigid waters at the village’s edge, a restorative method that’s anything but. Roderick is eager to go out on an expedition on his own, is convinced his wife will only slow him down and so proposes that she stay with Anning for a month to “recover.” A handsome stipend is offered and a reluctant arrangement is made.
Though Anning is reluctant, a relationship develops between these two women, one born out of loneliness that ultimately becomes emotionally and sexually intimate. Both having been marginalized, each woman craving any sort of validation and while the pair is reluctant at first to proffer this, they each eventually blossom thanks to the attention of the other. Winslet gives a reserved, coiled performance as Anning, a woman who’s retreated within after being ignored and ill-used by the patriarchal society she’s doomed to exist in. The actress allows the very hints of want and desire to come through her stoic demeanor, just enough to let the viewer know that a glimmer of passion still exists behind her steely gaze. Ronan is equally fine though she’s required to take another approach as her Charlotte has not been as battered yet, her youth still radiant, her hope more obvious.
That there is little basis in fact to the particulars of this relationship is of little concern to Lee. His theme is obvious and the titillation seems present just to draw our gaze. Credit Winslet and Ronan for bringing what little humanity there is in this stony Ammonite.
2 1/2 Stars
Pam says:
The opening scene plunges you into the harshness of the time; the rugged seaside pelted by heavy air and deafening winds. Mary Anning’s (Kate Winslet) raw and red hands, clench the slippery stones as she climbs up a rocky cliff in search of a hidden fossil, unearthed by the wintertime ebb and flow of the tides. Mary’s rugged determination and unyielding demeanor is evident in this opening scene and is punctuated as we quickly learn of her struggles to care for herself and her ailing mother. While studying and searching for her next big discovery, she begrudgingly makes ends meet by selling rocks and “gems.” Her renowned reputation unexpectedly garners the attention of Roderick Murchison, a fellow archeologist and his convalescing wife, Charlotte (Saiorse Ronan) whose lives will be forever changed by this brief moment in time.
Charlotte, a demur and gaunt young woman is pawned off to the reluctant Mary for the right price while Mr. Murchison travels the world. Mary becomes a caregiver for not just her own mother, but this young waif of a woman as well. Their attraction to one another becomes evident and eventually they succumb to their desires; an act that was forbidden in this era.
“Ammonite” is an incredibly slow and purposeful film as it painstakingly peels away the superficial layers without disrupting anything buried deeply beneath. We see the hurt and anger bubbling just under the surface of Mary’s skin, but mere looks and longing just aren’t enough to convey the entire story. We get only glimpses into her past as she interacts with a past “friend” (Fiona Shaw), and the difficulties of her childhood, but it leaves us longing for more. The relationship between Mary and Charlotte builds ever so slowly as Mary finds herself more of a caregiver and mother figure to Charlotte rather than love interest. While their love does grow, the sincerity of it always feels at odds. Both main characters always keep you, the audience, at an arm’s distance, forbidding us to truly know either of them and make a necessary connection. Of course, their love during this era is a forbidden one which is the element of tension throughout, but overall, the story itself lacks direction and depth.
2 1/2 Stars
