Ammonite: Winslet and Ronan shine in sensitive film
By IANS |
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Ammonite
Direction: Francis Lee
BY VINAYAK CHAKRAVORTY
Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan play out an intense romance in Francis Lee s bleak new arthouse effort that weaves fiction and speculation into a fabric of facts.
Lee s script is based in England of the 1800s and narrates the story of Mary Anning (Winslet), a fossil collector and palaeontologist who gained fame for her fossil findings along the English Channel. Lee borrows from an unsubstantiated slice of Mary s life to set up his narrative.
As the film begins, Mary is struggling to make ends meet. She has seen better days professionally, and when a wealthy geologist approaches Mary to entrust her with the job of looking after his ailing wife Charlotte (Ronan) while he is away on tour, she cannot afford to say no. He also purchases an ammonite that Mary found at the sea shore.