Ammonite
Short description
Set on the southern English coast in the 1840s, this drama centres on Mary Anning, a fossil hunter who is celebrated yet poorly rewarded for her discoveries. She scrapes a living selling finds to visitors and cares for her ailing mother. When a wealthy traveller asks her to look after his melancholic wife, Charlotte, while he goes away, Mary agrees because she needs the money. The two women come from different social worlds and are unlike each other in temperament, but as Charlotte learns to search for fossils alongside her, a closeness grows between them that neither expected and that neither can easily define.
Francis Lee wrote and directed the film, his second feature after God's Own Country (2017). Kate Winslet plays Mary, Saoirse Ronan plays Charlotte, and Gemma Jones, James McArdle, Alec Secăreanu and Fiona Shaw appear in supporting roles. It was produced by Emile Sherman, Iain Canning and Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly for See-Saw Films, and runs 118 minutes.
The film drew moderate audience scores, sitting at 6.5 out of 10 on IMDb from around 26,000 votes and 6.9 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller sample of 659. Its critics' rating of 6.7 out of 10 from 256 reviews places it close to the audience figures on IMDb. Worldwide takings of about 1 million USD indicate a limited commercial reach for a release with this cast.
What's left behind the scenes
- Kate Winslet herself staged the sexual scenes with her co-star Saoirse Ronan. Hoping that Ronan would be more comfortable, Kate Winslet insisted that the bed scenes be filmed on Ronan's 25th birthday, so that she would be in a festive mood (incidentally, this also allowed the actresses to have a little dry sparkling wine before filming). And, on top of everything else, Kate Winslet personally ensured that only women were present on set at that time.
- Director Francis Lee wanted the pre-production to take 4 months in order to have enough time to thoroughly develop the characters’ images. When he explained all this to Kate Winslet, he instructed her, as part of her preparation for the role, to go directly to Dorset and learn about fossil hunting and working with fossils. The actress followed his instructions.
- Winslet's character speaks in the traditional dialect spoken in Dorset (a county in western England). She practiced it for three weeks (even when taking her children to school), listening to a recording made specifically for this purpose by an employee of one of Dorset’s museums.
- The film was shot on location in West Dorset, UK, where paleontologist Mary Anning (1799-1847) actually lived and worked.
- After reading the script, Kate Winslet immediately understood that only Saoirse Ronan should play the role of Charlotte. It so happened that director Francis Lee shared the same opinion. At the time of receiving the script, Winslet was filming with Roger Michell (1956-2021) in the drama 'Blackbird' (2019), and Ronan – with director Greta Gerwig in the drama 'Little Women' (2019).
- Mary Anning's (1799-1847) relatives were delighted that a film would be made about their famous relative, and that Kate Winslet would play her, but they were somewhat disturbed by the fact that the film would show Anning, who was never married, having a lesbian relationship with a woman, for which there is no historical evidence. Director Francis Lee agreed with their arguments, but noted that, since almost nothing is known about Anning’s life, there is also no historical evidence of her heterosexual relationships, which allowed him to take some liberties. Furthermore, he claimed he did not intend to make a biographical film.
- Kate Winslet was so successful in transforming herself into her character (she even adopted Anning's gait) that when she once appeared on set not in costume, director Francis Lee simply didn't recognize her.
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