24FPS@LFF2020: Ammonite

Dir: Francis Lee

It would seem that Mary Anning (played here by Kate Winslet) and Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan) were remarkable women, both talented and important geologists and fossil hunters. It's a shame Francis Lee's film doesn't do much to acknowledge that, instead choosing to focus on a fictional affair between them.

The film's Anning meets Charlotte when her husband Roderick (James McArdle) asks the older woman to look after his depressed wife and to take her out on her daily fossil hunts while he is away on a trip with the Geological society (in reality, Charlotte had by this time already collected rocks and minerals for years and worked alongside her husband all the time). During a bout of illness, Charlotte begins staying with Mary and her elderly mother (Gemma Jones). After she recovers, Charlotte and Mary become closer, eventually embarking on their affair.

Ammonite is a film that reflects its setting. Lee and DP Stephane Fontaine render 1840s Lyme Regis largely in drab greys and browns, redolent of the mud Mary Anning digs through and the slate she pulls from it to find fossils. It's also a very cold looking film, even a scene of Mary and Charlotte swimming together, kissing as they find a moment of abandon in the sea, almost bristles with the chill of the water. The images give the film a certain harsh beauty, but it's unfortunate that they are matched by the emotional temperature of the screenplay and often the performances. Leaving aside the question of the appropriateness of the choice, if the story Lee is aiming to tell is of a relationship between these women rather than one of their scientific achievements,  it needs to be more convincingly presented than Ammonite manages. 

The writing is very reserved; dialogue is minimal, but critically so are moments of real connection between the soon to be lovers. Occasionally we see a longing gaze from Winslet, an indication that Mary finds Charlotte beautiful and is attracted to her. There's also a subtly played scene, full of unspoken backstory about a previous relationship that ended badly, between Winslet and Fiona Shaw as Elizabeth Philpott (another geologist and fossil hunter whose scientific achievements go, in this case, entirely unmentioned). The problem is that this doesn't seem to come back Winslet's way from Ronan, neither in the gaze nor in the events of the film is there any sense of what draws Charlotte, romantically or sexually, to Mary. Because Ronan and Winslet are both great actors, the chemistry is there to make the romantic scenes play individually, it's the inciting incident that seems to have gone missing. It perhaps ought to be there when Mary is invited by the handsome foreign doctor (Alec Secareanu) to a musical recital and insists that Charlotte also be invited, but again while we sense desire and jealousy from Mary it still never seems to come back. Even great actors can't play what isn't there. 

Outside of the romantic storyline, there are some impressive moments from the entire cast. The film draws a connecting line between Charlotte and Molly Anning, Mary's mother, both women affected by the loss of babies (eight in the case of Molly). One quietly devastating moment finds Charlotte, thinking she's doing a nice thing, cleaning the china figurines that are kept ever so tidy, only for Mary's mother to see her and be upset because "those are my babies". It's a little moment that speaks for what was, at the time, a huge scale of routine tragedy and both Ronan and Gemma Jones are excellent.

While some of the film's subtleties come through, the slow pace begins to feel grinding. Because of the setting, the element of art (in Mary revealing and sketching the fossils she finds) and the romantic theme it is almost impossible not to compare Ammonite to Celine Sciamma's masterful Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Ammonite suffers by the comparison in every respect, but most in how it deals with its pacing. Every moment of Portrait is loaded with meaning, every gaze pointed, every scene building tension and chemistry between the characters. I seldom, if ever, felt that from the many scenes of Mary and Charlotte picking up stones on the seafront or the long silences in the Anning home. 

Ammonite seems a missed opportunity. The performances are great within the limitations of the screenplay, but there is just too much that seems to have gone missing (and a lot of airless silence that could be filled). Gifted two fascinating women whose scientific achievements were groundbreaking (In 2010 the Royal Society included Anning in a list of the ten British women who have most influenced the history of science), Francis Lee instead opts to elide over most of that. It's not that we don't need more LGBT love stories told in mainstream cinema, just that inventing one about these two women doesn't seem like the best way to represent their lives and work.

★★