Twisted Rails (1934)

Francis Lee’s much-anticipated period romance, Ammonite, stars Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan as two women who fall in love against the backdrop of the English coast. Ammonite is both more and less than I expected, with Winslet and Ronan delivering stellar performances in a story that doesn’t quite live up to its potential.

Lee opens the film with an extended shot of a nameless woman scrubbing a museum floor. A group of men barks at her to move as they carry a fossil across the room. The scene effectively, if rather unsubtly, establishes the theme of devalued female labor.

We then meet Mary Anning (Winslet), a paleontologist eking out a bleak existence with her distant mother, played sublimely by Gemma Jones. Mary’s passion is excavating and studying the fossils she finds in the cliffs along the English Channel, but she makes ends meet by selling trinkets to tourists. Mary’s bitterness and loneliness stem from a series of traumas that largely remain implied. It’s been far too long since Winslet had a role with this much depth, and her powerful yet restrained performance alone makes Ammonite worth a watch.