On paper,Francis Lee’sAmmoniteseems like the kind of film for those who enjoyed last year’s exquisitePortrait of a Lady on Fire. It’s about the love affair between two women who can’t live their romance openly but feel a burning passion that can only end with bittersweet melancholy. And yet whereasPortrait of a Lady on Fireis one of the best love stories in cinema,Ammoniteis a cold, dry picture that goes through the motions without ever pushing deeper into its characters’ psyches or their relationship. It’s a film that manages to be so quiet that it barely has a pulse, and yet so obvious that it lacks a sense of intimacy.
Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) spends her days roaming the coastline of her town picking up fossils. Her work catches the interest of wealthy hobbyist Roderick Murchison (James McArdle), who wishes to join her on her excavations. However, Roderick’s wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan) is depressed and doesn’t have much interest in anything. When Roderick decides to tour Europe, he pays Mary to keep company with Charlotte in the hopes that the sea air will do her some good. The two women don’t connect at first, and Charlotte attempts suicide, but Mary nurses her back to health. From there, their bond deepens, and the aloof Mary starts to fall for the warm-hearted Charlotte.
I wish I could have been swept away in this story, but Lee’s choices are baffling. She’s almost created an anti-romance, and while that seems like it would be fascinating, in practice you have two actors with little chemistry cast against a backdrop that never mirrors any supposed affection the characters may have for each other. The broad strokes of the picture—two women who feel lost and lonely find affection in each other’s arms—makes sense, but their love never comes alive in any sense. The film gets just as much value as the two digging up fossils as it does from them making passionate love, and in both instances, you’re just as perplexed since everything feels so flat and untextured.
Winslet and Ronan are terrific actors, but there’s little connection between them here, and there’s not much digging to do with their characters. Winslet is reduced to being grizzled and Ronan is sad, and from there, they’re just kind of going through the motions, a far cry from their greatest performances where they made the characters come alive. They do what’s required of them, but it’s even weirder when you’ve seen them in electric love stories before and none of that emotion feels present inAmmonite.
I love a good period love story of forbidden romance, butAmmoniteis aggressively dull in everything it does. It draws out its love affair like an equation—this woman needs this, this other woman needs that, and therefore they need each other—but never finds the spark or humanity between them, so their love never comes alive for the audience. Instead, the love between Mary and Charlotte that’s meant to be contrasted against the hard, immovable fossils inhabits those qualities—they’re kind of interesting, but ultimately it’s been dead for eons, has no life of its own, and exists to sit in a museum as some vague curiosity before people move on to something else.
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