A gray veil hangs permanently over Lyme Regis, a small seaside town of limestone cliffs on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, Southern England. It is the birthplace of Mary Anning, a fossil collector and self-taught paleontologist. When she was eleven she discovered the fossil of an ichtyosaurus.

Francis Lee’s second film (GOD’S OWN COUNTRY) is loosely based on Anning’s life. The story begins when one of the buyers of her fossils comes by with his wife Charlotte, he says “slightly melancholy after a stressful event in her life,” asking her to live with her for a while. After a hesitant start, an intimate and close bond develops. Unacceptable in Victorian England in the nineteenth century. Their love seems like an escape from a male-dominated world.

AMMONITE is more than a love story or the story of an emancipation struggle. Like a real ammonite, a spiral fossil with many chambers, we explore a part of Anning’s life. The film arouses curiosity about this special woman, who fortunately received recognition during her lifetime for her pioneering work in paleontology.

Francis Lee, UK, Australia, 2020, 120 min. English spoken, Dutch subtitles. With Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Jones, James McArdle.

Source : Lumiere Website