Kate Winslet,Saorise Ronan
“AMMONITE” My rating: C+
120 minutes | MPAA rating: R
Kate Winslet is a great actress. No argument.
And I would happily sit in awe as Saorise Ronan read translated-from-the-Korean assembly instructions.
But despite the presences of these two acting giants, “Ammonite” is a bore. Albeit a bore punctuated with a heavy-breathing woman-on-woman sex scene .
Francis Lee’s film is inspired by historic fact.
Paleontology, the study of the fossil record, was all the rage In the early Victorian era. The science itself was still in an embryonic stage, but the dream of uncovering the remains of some prehistoric marvel motivated many a wealthy gentleman (the sort of chaps who had way too much money and time on their hands) to become amateur diggers.
Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) may be the best of them, a self-taught fossil sleuth who studies the eroded cliffs along the Lime coast where she lives and has a knack for big discoveries.
Not that she gets any credit for her genius. A single woman who is the sole support of her elderly mother (Gemma Jones), Mary sells her finds to well-heeled men who then submit them — under their names, not Mary’s — to museums and scientific organizations.
So, yeah, Mary has a chip on her shoulder.
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