Ammonite is a 2020 British romantic Period Drama starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, directed by Francis Lee.
Acclaimed yet unrecognized 19th century self-taught paleontologist and fossil collector Mary Anning (Winslet) lives on the southern coast of England in Lyme Regis (near what is now known as the 'Jurassic Coast'
) working alone collecting and selling common fossils to tourists in order to support herself and her elderly mother, but a chance job offer changes her life when an upper class couple arrive from London, when the husband asks Mary to care for his grieving wife Charlotte (Ronan) and to show her how she collects fossils the two begin to develop feelings for each other and form a romantic relationship.
Tropes
- Age-Gap Romance:
- Mary appears to be significantly older than Charlotte (Winslet was forty-five at the time Ammonite was filmed, while Ronan was twenty-six).
- Mary is also revealed to have had an ill-fated previous relationship with Elizabeth Philpot, who is twenty years her senior.
- Artistic License – History: Mary and Charlotte's romance. In reality, there's no evidence Mary and Charlotte were anything but close friends. Further, Mary is portrayed as much older than Charlotte (to match the actress's ages). Charlotte was actually a decade older than Mary.
- Book Ends: The movie opens with an Icthyosaurus fossil being put on display in the British Museum. the movie ends with Mary and Charlotte reconnecting while observing that same fossil.
- City Mouse: Charlotte is an upper-class lady who is unaccustomed to all the work in Mary Anning's fossil-hunting lifestyle.
- Country Mouse: Mary Anning is a middle-class self-made woman who spends her days combing the beaches for fossils, and feels out of place when she visits London to see her fossils on display, and balks at the notion of being Charlotte's live-in girlfriend.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Mary is quite the grump until Charlotte comes into her life (and stays there for a while - it's almost an hour into the runtime of the movie that Charlotte first coaxes a smile out of her).Elizabeth: It seems your Mrs. Murchinson has unlocked something in you that I couldn't.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: After Mary and Charlotte spend the night in bed together for the first time, Mary is seen the next morning furiously polishing a mirror.
- Florence Nightingale Effect: Charlotte falls ill with a fever after coming down with hypothermia, and Mary (in whose shop Charlotte fell unconscious) ends up taking care of her. Mary and Charlotte fall in love after this.
- The Greatest Story Never Told: In the ending, Mary discovers some of her fossils on display in a museum, but she was not given any credit for finding them.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Mary has a moment where she's like this during a concert hosted by a Doctor, seeing Charlotte seated a couple rows in front of her with another woman. Mary goes home rather than raise a fuss.
- Hairy Girl: Kate Winslet grew her underarm hair out for this film, since it takes place decades before the majority of Western women began shaving their body hair.
- Historical Relationship Overhaul: This film depicts 19th century paleontologist Mary Anning and geologist Charlotte Murchison as being in a lesbian relationship; while Anning was unmarried throughout her life Murchison was married to fellow geologist Roderick Impey Murchison. In addition, the film makes Anning older than Murchison though the reverse was true in real life.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Mary's mother starts coughing up blood halfway through the second act. She dies in the middle of the third.
- It's Not You, It's Me:
- Mary's ex-girlfriend Elizabeth all but says this in their scene together following the death of Mary's mother.
- Mary herself gives this excuse when Charlotte gifts Mary a spare bedroom in her London townhouse, offering to let Mary be her live-in girlfriend. Mary is too tied to her beach-side fossil hunting to take the offer seriously.
- Limerick: Mary recites one of the Bawdy Song variety for Charlotte's amusement:Charlotte: Say it again. Please?Mary: There was a young woman named Sally
Who loved the occasional dally
She sat on the lap
Of a well-endowed chap
And she said "Ooh, you're right up my alley!" - The Modest Orgasm: Happens to both Mary and Charlotte when they consummate their romance. Charlotte first performs cunnilingus on Mary, who places her right hand over her mouth to muffle her vocalizations; then Mary returns the favor and Charlotte manages to keep herself almost silent, which is lucky for them because she's pressed up against the wall of their room when she climaxes.
- Old-Timey Bathing Suit: Charlotte wears one when she goes for a swim on a cool overcast day, stepping out of a Bathing Machine and into a rough sea.
- Averted later in the film, when Mary and Charlotte go swimming in their shifts.
- Oscar Bait: It's a Period Piece Queer Romance starring two of the most critically acclaimed actresses of the 21st century. Rest assured,
critics still liked it (specifically the performances and chemistry of the two leads) but few would call it one of the best movies of the year. - Outliving One's Offspring: Mary is the only one of her mother's nine children to have survived childhood.
- It's heavily implied in dialogue that Charlotte had a baby who died as an infant, which is why she starts the film as a Sleepy Depressive.
- Period Piece: The film is set in 1840s England.
- Queer Romance: Mary and Charlotte fall in love, having a clandestine affair.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: Charlotte starts the film in black mourning dress, before shifting to whites, tans, and greens after falling in love with Mary. Her very last scene has her wearing a black shawl and bonnet over her cream-white dress, after Mary walked away from being her live-in girlfriend.
- Mary herself spends most of the time either in worn-out old tomboyish clothes for fossil-hunting, or a light blue plaid dress when at home or in her shop. she wears a dark blue, almost-black, mourning dress when her mother dies, and wears a dark red dress when she goes to London.
- Sleepy Depressive: Charlotte starts the movie so depressed she tries to sleep in as much as possible, and has to be prompted out of bed by her husband.
- There Is Only One Bed: When Charlotte falls ill, she sleeps in Mary's bed while Mary sleeps in a rocking chair. When the two fall in love, they share the bed.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Mary is the more masculine girl, a somewhat tomboyish fossil hunter, while Charlotte is the more feminine girl, who wears fancier dresses and is more kempt. Downplayed in that Mary still wears dresses, albeit ones that aren't as fancy as Charlotte's.
- Unkempt Beauty: Mary has stringy hair, doesn't wear makeup, and rarely smiles in the film. It's still not enough to distract from how beautiful Kate Winslet is.
