Ammonite: Atmosphere and a made-up romance amount to a modest nod to the life of an under-appreciated female scientist

By Karen Gordon

Rating: B 

In the opening scene of Ammonite, writer/director Francis Lee’s intimate romantic drama, a museum official sets up a new impressive fossil specimen in a case. The fossil is tagged with the name of the woman who found it, identified it and prepared it for exhibit.  

With a sniff of contempt, he covers over her name on the tag with that of a man.

It’s a small gesture, but a powerful reminder that it was the lot of many women to have their lives and accomplishments erased from history. That business of being unseen is one of Ammonite’s underlying themes.

Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan carry on a romance that, who knows, could have happened maybe.

It’s also a nod to the real Mary Anning, who was a respected and influential amateur paleontologist and fossil hunter in the mid 1800s.  The self-taught Anning, discovered incredible specimens along the Dorset coast, some of which are on display at the Natural History Museum. In spite of her solid reputation, and a growing recognition by some in the fields of paleontology and geology, (Darwin is one of the experts who sought her out), her gender kept her a below-the-radar figure, who made a small living selling ammonite and other small fossils at her shop. She died at the age of 47 in relative poverty. 

Anning is finally getting her due. Ammonite is the first of several new movies and other projects putting her accomplishments in their rightful place.  But this movie is already the most controversial.

Although much is known about her professional life, details about her personal life are sketchy.  

And so, writer/director Lee has taken the liberty of building a fictionalized story around her, using the fact that she never married to suggest that she was a lesbian.  

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

The controversies are less about sexual orientation, and more about taking over the identity of an historical figure and imposing a ‘what if’ scenario on her life. Even in a movie that deals, in part, with the way the male dominated society of the mid-1800s prevented Anning from really benefitting from her considerable talent, there’s irony that, in giving her attention, Lee has also overwritten her personal identity. 

The story is set in Lyme Regis Dorset where the real Mary Anning lived. Mary (Kate Winslet) fronts a gruff and testy personality, seemingly to keep people at bay. She and her mother (Gemma Jones) live in a small building that also houses the shop where they sell shells and ammonites to tourists. 

This is also where Mary does her more serious cleaning and meticulous cataloging of her finds.  Mary may not be as accepted as the men in her world, but she’s serious about what she does, and she has fans. 

One of them is Roderick Murchison (James McArdle), a rich Londoner who has brought his wife to Dorset with the express purpose of leaving her there for a while.  The refined Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan) is in mourning and deeply depressed. Roderick asks Mary to let Charlotte stay and help, hoping that the sea air and new experiences will help bring her out of her state of grief and back to joy again.

The two women seem like opposites.  Mary’s professional briskness extends to her personal life. The refined Charlotte has been brought up to be an upper-class wife, quiet, obedient and not used to house work, never mind in the outdoors. Initially Mary can barely suppress her irritation, but shift happens, as they say. 

On the surface Ammonite presents as a love story. But it’s mostly a character study of Lee’s version of Mary Anning. 

Winslet plays her as an intensely controlled woman, constantly on guard, with a jaw set in a fixed permanent look of disapproval, and a sense of anger just below the surface.  

She’s abstemious. There’s a joylessness to her. She doesn’t even seem to draw pleasure from her work.  Winslet lifts the veil every so often so that we can see the vulnerability hiding under that tough exterior. But even still, we don’t get many colours from this woman.  

That’s partially Lee’s approach.  Rather than develop character, he’s focused on atmosphere. Ammonite is a visually beautiful movie. Lee and cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine approach each shot with an artist’s eye. The camera lingers on details, hands working with stone or ritually washing a collection of figurines.  

Much of the soundtrack is made up of ordinary sounds: shoes on creaking floor boards, crashing waves, wagon wheels and horses hooves on stone streets. The film has a wonderfully quiet, reflective, and intimate tone, but that lovely subtlety ultimately robs it of some of its impact. 

Ammonite begins to falter in the final scenes.  The soft details and furtive glances give us a sense of tension, but the characters largely remain undeveloped, rendering the movie a little flat. And although there’s a softening of the relationship between the women, there just isn’t much chemistry. And by the end, it feels like Lee wasn’t completely sure of which story he wanted to tell. 

Lee has assembled a terrific cast, in addition to the leads, the film also benefits from the formidable Fiona Shaw, who has a small but pivotal scene with Mary close to the end. For my money, it’s the most interesting and impactful scene because it adds an interesting layer of complexity to her.   

Still, in spite of its flaws, Ammonite does a good job of evoking time and place. And whether Lee’s instincts about Mary Anning are right or wrong, his portrait of women’s lives in the mid-1800s is worthy. 

Ammonite. Written and directed by Francis Lee. Starring Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Jones. In theatres, where open, Friday, November 13.