Review/Opinion

'Ammonite'

Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) and Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan) embark on a romance by the ocean in “Ammonite.”
Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) and Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan) embark on a romance by the ocean in “Ammonite.”

What do you expect when a film about a stern, hard-crusted protagonist who falls in love despite herself, takes as its title the name of an ancient, spiral fossil, buried under earth and rock, and only released with careful, guiding hand and meticulous care? Subtle, we ain't.

Francis Lee's "Ammonite" wears its drabbiness on its sleeve like a badge of honor. In one scene toward the end, an old woman sits forlornly in her dark, dreary kitchen, the smudged, dingy beige walls matching perfectly, in tone and color, the woman's shapeless frock. It's perfect camouflage for dowdy, English coast matrons near the end of their days.

The setting of the film, naturally, is 19th-century Lyme, a small town on Britain's southern coast -- with its constant rain, portentous clouds, and beaches pitted with sharp and jagged rocks, it's like England's answer to Miami Beach! -- where geologist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) tirelessly walks the gray beaches, finding fossils that she can clean, sells to British science organizations (of which, due to her gender, she cannot be a member), or to the trickle of tourists who make their way down the ruddy coast.

Despite her meager operation, living in her shop with her elderly mother, Molly (Gemma Jones), Mary's rep as a fossil whisperer is so well established, she attracts the interest of a foppish scientist, Roderick Murchison (James McArdle), who has arrived in town to meet with her, along with his melancholy wife, Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan). He proposes paying her a handsome rate to show him the ropes, as it were, an offer she reluctantly accepts with a glance from her mother, who knows how much they need the money.

But when Roderick gets called away to further business, he leaves Charlotte, still suffering greatly from the loss of her baby, in the care of Mary, with the promise of coming back in several weeks' time to collect her.

Naturally, the stern, taciturn Mary, and the pampered, snooty Charlotte despise each other at first, but soon, Charlotte takes deathly ill, and Mary is forced into caring for her convalescent patient, softening for her, as she puts cold compresses on her forehead, and spreading homemade salve over her immaculate upper chest.

Soon enough, Charlotte has healed sufficiently, and the pair's relationship takes a turn, first for the tender, and then, for the passionate. As the two share Mary's bed, and bliss out together on the rough-hewn beach, it becomes clear their limited timeline will leave them both broken-hearted, or worse.

Through no fault of his own, Lee's film has little choice but to be compared to Céline Sciamma's vastly superior "Portrait of a Lady on Fire," also about two fierce women near the sea, who fall deeply in love, and are devastated to be forced apart. In that film, the pair's relationship is built from their interactions, verbal and physical, such that their relationship shimmers with emotional viability. By comparison, Mary and Charlotte barely speak, instead, they give each other furtive looks, and loving glances. In place of deeper connection, we're offered the equivalent of the mating rituals of a pair of shy high schoolers.

The transmutation between their original characters, and whom they so quickly become in each other's warm embrace, never feels earned, or even sensical. For as hard as the fantastically talented pair of actresses work to bring life to their roles, the screenplay, from director Lee, consistently gives them precious little with which to work.

Lee also has a penchant for well-worn tropes -- an insect caught under a glass, trying to get out; Molly's small animal figurines that represent her eight lost babies; and those damnable rocks that Mary constantly scrapes and digs for, up and down the beach -- that nestle in perfectly alongside the equally familiar plot points that rise up and down with the steady regularity of the waves crashing on Mary's chosen workplace.

If the film has a central, fatal weakness, however, it's the peculiar lack of chemistry between its leads. It's not to say Winslet and Ronan aren't up to the task, but the unbridled passion they are meant to be exhibiting -- highlighted by a last-night throwdown whose graphic nature gets handled ably by Lee's artful blocking -- nevertheless doesn't resonate deeper than those dour walls of Mary's kitchen. The same can be said of the film in general, the lack of chemistry and rapport from the actors is exhibited in the film's dismal palette and pat imagery.

There's nothing wrong with a serious-minded film, of course, even one as seemingly joyless as this one, but despite the pedigree of its leads, and the progressive subject matter, it never rises above the gray dampness of its climate.

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‘Ammonite’

78 Cast: Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Jones, James McArdle, Alec Secareanu, Fiona Shaw

Director: Francis Lee

Rating: R, for some sexuality/nudity

Running time: 2 hours

Playing theatrically.

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