TOUCH ME // A FILM REVIEW OF "AMMONITE"
AMMONITE, the second film from writer/director Francis Lee, blends together real life figures with a world of "What if's?" It isn't so much as if the real life of famed paleontologist Mary Anning doesn't have enough tales to fill up a story all on her own. Lee isn't setting out to make a biopic. What he's searching for here is an exploration of class and wealth, of love and desire, forbidden desire and of the emotions we shut far away when the world is too cruel to us. Anning herself was not only a Paleontologist, but she was also a woman, making it even more rare to do the things she did. Her lifelong work in paleontology, as a collector herself and a dealer (she ran her own shop in Lyme Regis England) helped open up scientific thinking of prehistoric life. She was poor most of her life and lived by small means. There's also very little known of any sort of romantic ties to Anning (she died a single woman at age 47) so Lee here explores a possible romance that comes from forbidden love itself.
Winslet plays Mary and she walks up and down the shore each day, uncovering items which are often credited to the men who present them, not to Anning herself. She is well respected among her peers and runs a shop to help take care of her sick Mother (Gemma Jones). One day, a rich admirer named Roderick Murchison (James McArdle) comes into her shop and tells her how much he respects her work. He asks to join her on one of her walks, to see how she sees the world, and will gladly pay her. She reluctantly agrees, and later he asks her to keep an eye on his grief stricken wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan), who has been wilting away in her sadness. Mary again agrees because she needs the money, but what happens between them, while Roderick is heading around Europe, sets the stage for the forbidden romance that takes them both by surprise.
The plot is lean and simple, with a few other characters filling in gaps here and there, leaving the film to be more like visual poetry filled with longing and wants instead of plot devices letting us know what the characters journey is. Their journey here is each other and fighting their way outside of themselves. Winslet and Ronan are both magnetic, with Winslet showcasing a woman who's guard is very much up and not thrilled of letting anyone in. Ronan seems broken when we first meet her, but she soon exudes a radiance that is enchanting, leaving no doubt how she cracks through Mary's defenses. It's not a love story for the ages, nor is Lee trying to tell one. He's telling a simple tale of passion, of desire between two women in an age where their desires or wants rarely mattered. Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine captures the film with an extraordinary eye, making even the unremarkable remarkable. Much like in his first film, Francis Lee challenges the audience to dig a little deeper into what the visuals of his story are telling. Winslet and Ronan are perfectly up to task, telling more with simply glances and quiet walks together than some screenplays can in 90 pages. Though this may be an imagined tale, it feels more heartbreakingly real with every frame. AMMONITE draws you in and takes your breath away, only releasing it when it deems you may breathe again.
GRADE: A
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Francis Lee STARRING Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Jones, Fiona Shaw, James McArdle, Alec Secareanu. NOW PLAYING AT SELECTED THEATRES AND ON DEMAND. FOR MORE INFO: https://ammonite-movie.com/