REVIEW: Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet Can’t Save “Ammonite”
Set in 1840s England, Director Francis Lee’s Ammonite tells the story of a woman, Mary Awning (Kate Winslet), who has spent her entire life exploring the cliffs along the English Channel at Lyme Regis searching for fossils. She has made a career for herself, but in doing so, she has also shut herself out from the rest of the world. That is, until Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan) is left in her care. Dealing with her own trauma, Charlotte’s husband leaves Charlotte in Mary’s care, in hopes that being be the sea will make her feel better. However, it isn’t the sea that makes her feel better, it is her relationship with Mary that brings light back into her life.
Mary Awning is not a made up character created for this film, but a real woman who spent her life searching for fossils as a paleontologist. Instead of focusing on this woman’s amazing feat, especially for a woman in the 1840s, and finding a way to entwine the romance between the two female leads into the story, Lee focuses solely on the romance. Which could of worked if as the romance between the two characters heated up, the story didn’t die down.
The title of the film is also supposed to act as a metaphor for the story, but even that doesn’t pan out. Like paleontologists have to uncover a rock to see if there is ammonite within, Charlotte has to shed Mary of her icy exterior to reveal the true woman within. However, unlike a paleontologist who takes their time exposing the ammonite, Charlotte takes no time exposing Mary. It almost seemed too easy for Charlotte to get through Mary’s icy exterior and for them to immediately fall into a relationship with one another. There was no relationship building between the two characters, which caused the relationship to feel like nothing more than friends with benefits.
Thankfully, Winslet and Ronan were able to find ways to make the relationship seem somewhat plausible between Mary and Charlotte. These ways were mainly nonverbal, since there wasn’t much dialogue that helped develop the relationship, but they did the best with what they had. Both Winslet and Ronan are fantastic actresses, so it is a shame to see their talent wasted as it was in this film.
I wanted to enjoy this film, but I just couldn’t. Fans of Winslet and Ronan may want to check out another piece of their work before setting on this one. If you are really interested in seeing this film, I would wait until it is on Video on Demand or streaming.
Grade: D