BFI London Film Festival: Ammonite

"I want her to walk the shoreline with you, learn from you."

The BFI London Film Festival was a very different experience this year, yet there was one consistent feature that was left unchanged by the pandemic, and that was the array of brilliant films. The festival was made perhaps even more accessible than usual due to the extraordinary circumstances, with screenings happening up and down the country instead of just in the capital. The festival was just as successful as it has been in years prior, and this is largely thanks to its closing gala feature, Ammonite.

Set against the bleak backdrop of Victorian Lyme Regis, Francis Lee’s Ammonite is dull and grey in everything you see, from the jagged cliff faces to the stark, dirty home of our pioneering paleontologist Mary Anning. Lee is no stranger to a dreary backdrop, as shown in his directorial debut God’s Own Country, set against the damp soils of the Yorkshire hillside. Lee has a habit, it appears, of making the setting of his films just as much a character as the protagonists themselves.

Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) spends her waking hours wandering solitary along the crashing shoreline, clawing fossils out of the mud and sand with only her bare hands, the sound of howling waves as her only accompaniment. She works night and day to excavate these impressive fossils, which are then swiftly credited to the male buyer. Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan) is more or less abandoned in the care of Anning after her snobbish husband decides that he is fed up of her deep depression (that leaves her white as a ghost and barely able to leave her bed) and wants to go on a tour of Europe. Both of their lives appear as spiritless and grey as each other’s, with both women being constantly overlooked and mistreated. It's only when their hostilities eventually halter, and they become warmer with each other that so does the film as a whole. The beautiful and vivid love scenes specifically, that were choreographed by Winslet and Ronan themselves, are so full of passion and colour that they serve as a welcome contrast to the bleakness of the rest of the film, and it all starts to come alive with them. Mary and Charlotte bring out so much in each other emotionally and physically that it liberates them both and entirely brings them back to life, a credit to the chemistry between the two lead actresses.

Ronan is brilliant, as she so often is, however this film is entirely Winslet’s. This is the best we have seen her in years, in fact it may be a career best altogether. She is absolutely unstoppable, shining so brightly as this woman who is so unreachable. Ammonite is deafening in its landscape but silent in its dialogue, as we are given the smallest amounts of conversation. Despite this, Winslet finds so much to say without saying anything at all. Her poised performance relies so heavily on body language, yet still manages to communicate all of this woman's misery, recluse and inner suffering towards a life that has been most prejudiced against her. 

What worked really well as a fitting vehicle for the stars, however, could also serve as the biggest downfall for the film, because the lack of dialogue at often times meant it felt like we, the viewer, were missing out on pivotal pieces of information, and also like we were on the outside of a big secret. 

This gorgeous love story doesn’t have a happy ending tied up in a neat bow, it is actually left very open to interpretation, potentially to the exasperation of some viewers. This masterfully directed picture shows us the importance of human connections and relationships, even if they aren’t built to last.

★★★★½