Butler's Cinema Scene

At top:  Carey Mulligan, Archie Barnes; below: Ralph Fiennes

“THE DIG” My rating: B- (Netflix)

112 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

“The Dig” may be little more than motion picture comfort food…but right now comfort food is what we want.

Though inspired by real events — the discovery in 1939 of the Sutton Hoo site, a 6th-century Anglo-Saxon boat and priceless burial artifacts found  in an English pasture — this Masterpiece-ish effort from director Simon Stone and screenwriter Moira Buffini gets most of its momentum from the  melodrama (much of it made up) surrounding the enterprise.

I mean, excavating ancient treasures one tiny trowel scoop at a time isn’t exactly scintillating cinema. Bring on the heavy breathing.

Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) is a self-taught “excavator” (he wouldn’t presume to call himself an archaeologist) whose nose for buried wonders has been proven on various sites around his native Suffolk.  He’s crusty and cranky — in large part because his efforts are undervalued by the hoity-toity academic types with whom he must often work. (This was an era when archaeologists wore neckties and tweed jackets to dig.)

Now he’s been invited to the estate of widow Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan); she has an ancient mound out in the north forty she’d like to excavate. Basil would actually get to be the boss of the dig.

Along the way the childless fellow will become a father figure to Edith’s young son Robert (Archie Barnes) and befriend Edith’s cousin Rory (Johnny Flynn), who is brought in to help with some of the heavy lifting.  All this warm fuzzy stuff later will become important when it’s revealed that Edith has major health issues.

Johnny Flynn, Lily James

More dramatic conflict arrives in the form of Charles Phillips (Ken Stott), an officious and slightly pompous archaeologist sent by London to check out Brown’s finds; he’s so impressed with the site’s possibilities that he takes over the dig, relegating Brown to hauling around wheelbarrows of sifted dirt.  The proud old fella is ready to leave until Edith pulls rank to get him at least partly reinstated.

The plot thickens.  Among Phillips’ crew of university-trained diggers are  Stuart and Peggy Piggot (Ben Chaplin, Lily James), a married couple whose shared passion is digging.  It’s becoming increasingly clear to Peggy that her hubby has no interest in sex — at least not with women.  But Edith’s cousin Rory seems like a pleasant enough fellow.  Hmmmm…are things about to get hot and heavy in the heather?

Somehow “The Dig” manages to avoid overt silliness. The mist-shrouded morning meadows are glorious to behold, the performers are frankly much better than the material requires (using Mulligan and Fiennes in these roles is like going after a housefly with an elephant gun), and director Stone excels at genteel storytelling.

Moreover, the real-life yarn bubbles with  festering issues of class.  Brown was denied any official recognition for his part in finding the Sutton Hoo treasure until long after his death in 1977.

| Robert W. Butler