Ammonite

Ammonite stars Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, two acting powerhouses. There was little chance I wouldn’t enjoy a movie where those two kiss. And I did enjoy Ammonite. But while it is a good movie, it never ends up being fully great.

The film takes place in the 1840s. Kate Winslet plays Mary Anning. Mary is a fossil hunter whose work is constantly overlooked because she is a woman. Mary meets a fan named Mr. Murchison who is travelling around doing a fossil expedition. In tow is his wife, Charlotte who is suffering from “melancholy”. Mr. Murchison soon departs to look for fossils elsewhere but leaves his depressed wife behind. Mary is initially chilly to Charlotte and Charlotte unresponsive to any gestures of friendship. But after Charlotte falls ill and Mary nurses her, their connection grows. Before you know it, Charlotte and Mary are getting it on right on top of the fossil workbench.

The most disappointing aspect of the film is that it never gives its talented actresses enough space to truly go all out in their acting. Winslet and Ronan are props for director Francis Lee’s admittedly beautiful shots. Both actresses are serviceable in their roles, but what they’re asked to do isn’t particularly taxing. Any number of actresses could have done these roles justice. It’s a mistake to cast two such extraordinary actresses and never take full advantage of that fact. At the end of the day, I’m not sure Saoirse Ronan will get an Oscar nomination for this role. Given her track record, that’s sort of a fuck up on the part of the movie. Ronan is someone who can really elevate a role. But Ammonite didn’t give her enough to work with to do that.

The directing and visuals of the film are very good, though. Frances Lee clearly took a lot of time setting up shots and the overall tone of the film. It ends up being reminiscent of Portrait of a Lady on Fire but its more dour, English sibling. Bland though the colour scheme may be, each shot is meticulously constructed and beautiful to look at. Though sometimes, the film does try too hard and its visual storytelling and symbolism can be a bit on the nose.

What truly holds this film back from being truly great is how damn repressed it is. Obviously, it had to be a little repressed. It’s a period drama about women in England. But Ammonite spends too much time setting up how oppressive this society is when it could have been a given. And then that oppressive atmosphere never abates. Usually, in movies like this once the men have left the picture, the women really flourish and spread their wings. Not so with Ammonite. Mary especially remains chilly and unknowable through the movie. She’s constantly shutting down overtures of friendship, romance and the possibility of anything nice in her life without proper reason why. Mary and to a lesser degree, Charlotte never fully come alive even in the thick of their romance and facing an absence of stifling male influence.

But for all that I just talked about how repressed the women in Ammonite are, the movie had more sex than I had expected. Really, it’s just two scenes but the second one is pretty lengthy. Sex scenes and nudity are pretty par for the course for Kate Winslet but it’s by far the most sex I’ve seen Saoirse Ronan perform in a film. She sits on Kate Winslet’s face at one points while Winslet masturbates herself. I’m not mad about it. The scene does feel a little gratuitous but at least it made physical and logical sense in terms of sexual acts two women might get up to.

Ammonite is a good but not great movie. I definitely wished it would have utilized its talented actresses more. Though talented as they are, the performances in the film are perfectly fine, good even. The film perhaps tries a little too hard to be taken seriously as an awards contender which stifles some of the vitality present in Frances Lee’s first film, God’s Own Country. Still, trying and largely succeeding at being a film good enough to be an awards contender is also not necessarily a bad thing. And, at the end of the day, the film gave me fossil excavation as foreplay and Saoirse Ronan getting absolutely railed by Kate Winslet.

Overall rating: 7.9/10

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