Ammonite movie review & film summary (2020)

All of this falls apart completely without two high caliber performers to pull it off. Ronan is very good here—she quite literally always is at least ‘very good’ in everything she does—but the movie really belongs to Winslet, who reminds us how incredible she can be with the right material. She avoids every single trap into which this character could have tumbled, refusing to overplay the reclusive aspects early in the film and finding so much to say through body language instead of dialogue throughout. The way her body responds when Charlotte touches her the first time, and then as their relationship gets more physical, feels transformative. There’s so much grace and nuance in this performance that it could be studied to consider all of the smart decisions that Winslet makes in each scene. She has been given a remarkably small amount of dialogue and no narration, and yet she conveys an overwhelming amount of inner conflict. It’s never once forced or manufactured. And Ronan matches her beat for beat, especially in the second half of the film. She too has been changed by this union, but she responds to that change differently. The final scene will frustrate some people, but it will also lead to some fascinating writing about where these characters went from here.

On that note, Mary Anning was a real fossil hunter who made formative discoveries, but there’s no evidence that she had a relationship with someone like Charlotte. Anning’s descendants have questioned using a real person for a story like this, but that conversation ends for me when we ask ourselves if people would object to a heterosexual romance being fictionally placed on Anning (only the most puritanical historians would do so). With “Ammonite,” Francis Lee is reaching for something deeper than a biopic or history lesson. It is a story of connection, something we all seek, even after our lives seem to have made it impossible to find. Even people as removed from society as Anning can suddenly be thrust into life-changing relationships. We can all be changed forever by someone we meet like an unexpected fossil find, digging through the rocks on the shore to discover something you’ve never seen before.

This review was originally published on September 11, 2020 in conjunction with the premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film opens theatrically on November 13, 2020 and will be on VOD on December 4th, 2020. 

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46apKannp7BpnnMqK2inV2nsre1xLBka2hiZQ%3D%3D