Review: Winslet finds passion among the rocks in ‘Ammonite’
It’s tempting to compare “Ammonite” to “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” another period piece about a lesbian relationship near the cliffs and sea
The new film “ Ammonite ” unearths the stories of two women buried by history: paleontologist Mary Anning, who in the 19th century made significant prehistoric fossil discoveries along the coast in Southwest England, and geologist Charlotte Murchison, who worked in the area briefly alongside her geologist husband.
But instead of illuminating what we know about monite,” writer-director Francis Lee (“God’s Own Country”) takes a footnote from their lives- that they worked together a bit and became friends – and turns it into a passionate affair. While that’s an inspired idea for a piece of historical fiction, “Ammonite” is a mixed bag: exquisitely beautiful, with committed and lived-in performances and bursts of intense eroticism, but also a dreary and oddly empty experience.
Kate Winslet, stripped down and serious, plays Anning, who lives with her mother (Gemma Jones) and is struggling to get by. […]