“ Ammonite” is available on video on demand starting Friday, Dec. Talking is simply not this movie’s strong suit, especially when the weather speaks so much louder than words. They only stumble in the film’s dialogue-heavy final scenes. Ronan’s got precious little to work with here beyond her formidable screen presence, but you can see the pleasure these two take in working off each other, filling in gaps the writing doesn’t address. It was inspired to pit her opposite Saoirse Ronan, who with an air of sophistication beyond her years and exemplary taste in projects already seemed to be Winslet’s heir apparent, one blockbuster boat ride away from similar superstardom. ![]() “Ammonite” is a reminder of what a richly, rigorously disciplined performer Winslet can be, and of the sheer volume of emotions she can cram into a lingering glance. After her breathtakingly bad performances in the risible “Labor Day” and Woody Allen’s “Wonder Wheel,” she slummed for a bit in YA piffle like “Divergent” and studio schlock such as “Collateral Beauty” and “The Mountain Between Us,” and in “Steve Jobs” she suffered the indignity of playing a woman in an Aaron Sorkin screenplay. Saoirse Ronan (left) and Kate Winslet in the film "Ammonite." (Courtesy NEON)īluntly speaking, this hasn’t been the easiest decade to be a Kate Winslet fan. (I’m not saying I expected to learn a lot about paleontology from watching this movie, but I had to go look up what ammonite is after it was over.) The thinness of the script would probably be a much bigger issue if not for these two actresses. He’s an experiential filmmaker prioritizing physicality over all else, an approach that sometimes fails him on the screenplay side. There are a lot of bugs in this movie and all the food looks like it tastes terrible. But where Sciamma’s film was swoony and cerebral, Lee goes for the grit. “Ammonite” has the bad luck of arriving so soon after Céline Sciamma’s “ Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” with story similarities abounding between these brief encounters on off-season beaches. It’s a slow thaw, then things really heat up. It’s fascinating to watch the flickers of feeling cross Winslet’s face as this flighty young girl begins to bring her out of a self-imposed emotional exile. It’s only after being nursed through a life-threatening fever by her reluctant caretaker do any stirrings of affinity between the two women begin. Sent to the seashore on doctor’s orders to recover from a miscarriage, she stays in bed all day and is horrid to the hired help. The wispy Ronan is diaphanous by comparison, with her fancy bonnets and evening attire. ![]() Living in near-silence with an ailing mother (Gemma Jones) who mostly just sneers and coughs blood into a handkerchief, Mary’s so gruff and withdrawn it’s not until almost an hour into the movie you realize it’s the first time you’ve seen her smile. Wrapped neck-to-toe in worn flannel and wool, her movements are blocky and heavy-footed, her gaze downcast. There’s nothing gimmicky about it, this is just who Mary is. But the performance lacks the preening vanity of most actresses who “ugly up” for Oscar nominations. Winslet has transformed herself physically for the role to a subtly astonishing extent, the camera lingering on her rough-hewn hands and broad, muscular back. Kate Winslet (left) and Saoirse Ronan in director Francis Lee's film "Ammonite." (Courtesy NEON) Kate Winslet does her best work in years as the brusque, all-business spinster, barely tolerating the intrusive company of a visiting scientist (James McArdle) and fuming when she gets stuck caring for his sickly wife Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan) after the gentleman gets called away on an expedition. Set in the 1840s, the film catches up with Mary when she’s working at a seaside shop selling snail shells to tourists and excavating fossils by hand from a nearby beach. But the movie isn’t so much interested in her achievements as her isolation. ![]() ![]() It’s a biopic of sorts, a snapshot from late in the life of paleontologist Mary Anning, whose discoveries were largely written out of history books by the boys’ club. I paused the movie about halfway through to go put on a sweatshirt. Dialogue and music are scarce, with an aggressive sound design dominated by rattlings of old houses, the dull roar of the ocean and howls of freezing winds. It’s a more tactile picture than most, concerned with cold mornings and cramped, permanently damp interiors. “Ammonite,” a windswept historical romance from writer-director Francis Lee, puts you right on the raw, rocky beaches of the southern English coastline. They say you know a movie is doing something right when you can feel its weather. Kate Winslet (left) and Saoirse Ronan star in director Francis Lee's film "Ammonite." (Courtesy NEON) This article is more than 1 year old.
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