PROVOKR PICK: AMMONITE

BY: Amanda Jane Stern

In 2017, veteran British actor Francis Lee made his directorial debut with the quiet, romantic drama God’s Own Country. Set in the Yorkshire countryside, the movie follows Johnny Saxby (Josh O’Connor) a lonely, young farmer who lives with his emotionally distant father, Martin (Ian Hart) and grandmother (Gemma Jones). Still recovering from a stroke, Martin is unable to work the land, leaving it all up to Johnny. For extra help, Martin hires a migrant farmhand from Romania, Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu). What starts as a contentious relationship between Johnny and Gheorghe soon blossoms into a beautiful, yet understated love story. Now, Lee is back with his sophomore feature, the sapphic-love story Ammonite.

Set in the 1840s in the English countryside, Ammonite follows Mary Anning (Kate Winslet), a brilliant but overlooked paleontologist. It’s been years since her famed discoveries, and now she spends her days collecting fossils along the Southern coast to sell to tourists. Her days are long and bleak, and the only company she regularly has is her ailing mother, Molly (Jones). Things change when fellow paleontologist Roderick Murchison (James McArdle), on the first stop of a European trip, arrives with his wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan). Charlotte is suffering from a recent personal tragedy, and Roderick is clueless to help her. He entrusts her to Mary for a good sum of money while he continues on his journey. 

While Mary is not pleased with being saddled with a new companion, she can’t afford to turn down the money, so she agrees to take Charlotte on as a temporary charge. As the two spend their days together, working long hours along the coast, they develop a tight bond. Before long, that bond blossoms into a romance that will change both their lives.

Unlike God’s Own Country, the characters in Ammonite are based on actual people. Mary Anning and Charlotte Murchison did exist and had a close friendship that lasted until their deaths. However, there is no evidence to suggest that their relationship was more than platonic or that either woman was gay or bisexual. There has been some backlash that it’s the “queering” of a true story, but it isn’t claiming to be a biopic. Additionally, Lee, a gay man, has compared the film practice of “straightening” gay people, so is there anything wrong with speculating on the sexuality of a women whose actual sexuality has never been revealed?

See Ammonite in select theaters beginning on November 13, 2020.