Synopsis
In 1840s England, palaeontologist Mary Anning and a young woman sent by her husband to convalesce by the sea develop an intense relationship. Despite the chasm between their social spheres and personalities, Mary and Charlotte discover they can each offer what the other has been searching for: the realisation that they are not alone. It is the beginning of a passionate and all-consuming love affair that will defy all social bounds and alter the course of both lives irrevocably.
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Cast
- Kate WinsletMary Anning
- Saoirse RonanCharlotte Murchison
- Gemma JonesMolly Anning
- James McArdleRoderick Murchison
- Alec SecăreanuDr. Lieberson
- Fiona ShawElizabeth Philpot
- Sarah WhiteMuseum Cleaning Woman
- Liam ThomasMuseum Workman
- Sam ParksCurator
- Claire RushbrookEleanor Butters
- 100
BBC
One of Lee’s brilliant choices is to refuse to put a soppy romantic gloss on the affair. He suggests instead that passion can blind lovers to a true understanding of each other as easily as it can open their eyes. - 91
Entertainment Weekly
There's an austerity to the film — long shots of stone and candlelight, clipped dialogue — that can feel rigorous, almost grim. But Lee (God's Own Country) is only building a richer kind of mood, and priming the canvas for his actresses, who reward that faith with remarkable performances. - 90
The Hollywood Reporter
This is the work of a mature filmmaker in full command of his voice, yielding remarkable performances, chief among them a complex character study of stoicism and desire from Kate Winslet that might be the best work of her career. - 80
The Guardian
It is a love story that is also a fascinating artefact: quixotic, romantic, erotic. - 80
Los Angeles Times
Ammonite, a work of art rather than science or history, has no qualms about departing from the known record — and does so with wit, beauty and a modernism that feels all the more bracing in this Victorian context. - 67
The A.V. Club
Ammonite is too pallid to really get your blood flowing. - 58
Vanity Fair
Whatever the truth of Anning and Murchison’s time in Dorset together was, Ammonite could have done whatever it wanted. It chooses instead to do close to nothing, and leaves us, quite like its central pair, helplessly grasping for more. - 50
IndieWire
Even in their most intimate scene, Mary and Charlotte and their love remain at a remove.