Written and directed by Francis Lee
Starring Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Jones and Fiona Shaw
Running time: 2 hours
MPAA rating: R for longing looks and lesbian love

by Jaime Davis, The Fixer

There are countless historical lesbian melodramas out there in the world, like the gorgeous Carol, perfect The Handmaiden and the exquisite Portrait of a Lady on Fire, just to name a select few. And now in 2020, there’s Ammonite, blazing bright with the star power of Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet, beautiful in its gray melancholia, but lacking much in the way of feeling behind the central tale. I’m not even going to attempt to discuss why there are so many lesbian period films, because this piece by Kira Deshler in Screen Queens provides theories far superior to anything I could ever cobble together. Deshler argues that many of these (mainstream) films exist because of a potent combination of audience tastes, beauty and aesthetics. Studios are keen to produce these films as they’re commonly considered less sexually explicit while their disconnection from the current time period allows for a lack of overt political commentary, hence them being safer choices at the box office. Basically, what we’re left with are movies about sad white women in restrictive clothing falling in love and fumbling with petticoats.

And that, my friends, is basically Ammonite in a nutshell. Yes, yes there’s more to it than that. It’s exactly the backdrop for the love story I found a million times more interesting than the lesbian romance angle. I’m always looking for something queer (and romantical, if possible) to watch - in my opinion, the more queer movies, the merrier! But Ammonite gave me the opposite reaction - hold the romance, please! And I’m a lesbian! I’m not supposed to feel this way, right?

Writer and director Francis Lee (God’s Own Country), also an accomplished stage and screen actor, focuses his attention on real-life paleontologist and fossil expert Mary Anning, quite possibly the inspiration for the song and eventual tongue twister “She Sells Seashells” (she sells seashells on the seashore). Anning, it could be argued, has still never truly received her due credit in the scientific community and the world at large, though in her time she was shortly revered in some circles. Life for Anning, in Lyme Regis on the coast of England, was difficult and money was often scarce, though she had her work, inspired by the teachings of both her father and mother. Their lives were also rough, with Anning’s mother losing all but two of her 10 children very young and Anning’s father dying when Mary was only 11. Her mother passed away in 1842, five years later Anning herself died, and two years after that, the remaining Anning sibling (Joseph) also succumbed.

At the beginning of Ammonite, we come upon Mary (Winslet) and her mother (Gemma Jones) in the early 1840s. Anning, lacking any proper education, is an outsider in the scientific world and also alienated from her longtime friend and fellow fossil collector Elizabeth Philpot (the regal Fiona Shaw), though we don’t see her just yet. The plot kicks into high gear when she’s visited by budding geologist Roderick Murchison (James McArdle), on an expedition in the area with his mourning wife, Charlotte (Ronan) in tow. Mr. Murchison is a peach of a husband - while it’s clear he cares for his wife, his manner is anything but soft. At dinner, he orders himself a rich feast while choosing for his wife only white fish with no sauce. Charlotte has recently lost a child; we don’t learn the circumstances behind it, but we know there’s pain between the two as Charlotte wears black and Roderick admonishes her with the oh-so-comforting, “It’s not the right time to make another baby.” Mr. Murchison’s focus is his work, and while he was hoping the trip would do Charlotte some good and bring back “his clever wife,” it’s just not working out the way he hoped. And so he does what any dream husband would do - he leaves her in Lyme Regis at a hotel, and asks Mary Anning to look after her. Bye, dude.

This is not the first time Anning is asked to care for the sad Mrs. Murchison. After a tiny spat between Mary and Charlotte that has Mary informing her charge that she’s no babysitter, Charlotte decides to go sea bathing (a practice that looks entirely frightening and not in the least safe, but okay) before falling desperately ill. Mary calls the town doctor, who guilts Mary and her mother into nursing Charlotte back to health because it’s their womanly duty or whatever. I rolled my eyes so hard at this, but even today, this social structure still exists in much of the US. It had me thinking about culture writer Anne Helen Peterson’s recent discussion of the current female social safety net, and how it’s falling to pieces amid the pandemic (which you can read here). Now with Charlotte, weak and vulnerable in the Anning home and Mary taking care of her, it’s the perfect recipe for r-o-m-a-n-c-e, or as I like to call it, Love in the Time of Bonnets.

If only. While we get longing looks, some light hand-grazing and timid bed-sharing before moving on to sexy times, key elements are missing between the two characters. Winslet and Ronan are not at fault here - the two provide quite tender, emotional performances with what they’re given to work with. Instead, I feel there’s something seriously lacking from the script, something in the overall story providing the proper build-up between Mary and Charlotte illustrating their connection. Without this, the audience fails to understand what brings them together and what keeps them bonded, besides them both being a bit broken. Despite this glaring issue, there is some fine technical work here - the film is pretty to look at, and there’s beauty in the sad notes Lee weaves through every single frame. Some interesting framing provides an awesome shot near the end, a moment when Anning visits the British gallery where her beloved ichthyosaur resides. As Winslet stands perfectly square in front of a portrait of some accomplished man (one of many in the museum), our eyes can almost picture the portrait is of Anning, as it should have been.

It’s precisely this perfect shot that has me wishing for so much more in Ammonite. There is little historical evidence that Mary Anning and Charlotte Murchison (and Anning and Elizabeth Philpot) were ever romantically involved, which isn’t the worst thing, really. Countless historical novels have re-imagined the lives of those who lived in unique and inaccurate ways, so why can’t film do this? What really upsets me - is Ammonite the movie version of Mary Anning’s life we really want? The version she deserves?

I would have preferred a more streamlined story - one in which the focus was purely on Mary Anning’s accomplishments, talents and brilliant mind despite an education or genteel upbringing, and what she endured as a rebel in men’s scientific sphere. Maybe that wouldn’t have been as marketable of a film, and maybe that’s why I’m not working in film development. But what a more satisfying way to celebrate the genius of such an interesting human!

Ammonite is available on demand December 4.