Ammonite Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Ammonite Blu-ray Movie Review

Portrait of two ladies on fire.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 2, 2021

For those of you who are able to easily pass a joking quiz I posted in the opening paragraph of our Portrait of a Lady on Fire Blu-ray review asking folks to name an 18th century female painter, here's a potentially more difficult stumper: name a 19th century female paleontologist. Don't feel bad if an answer doesn't instantly appear from the deepest, darkest nooks and crannies of your synapses, since my hunch is there were probably even fewer 19th century female paleontologists than there were 18th century female painters. That said, both Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Ammonite ply at least somewhat similar stories, detailing women in cultures (and vocations) where men invariably and inarguably dominated, and with a romance between two women ensuing. Ammonite has the distinction of supposedly offering two real life historical characters, Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) and Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan), though much about this film has been "fictionalized" (a nice sounding euphemism indicating things are pretty much made up throughout the story). While the historical record evidently supports the fact that Anning and Murchison knew each other, went fossil hunting together, and evidently enjoyed a close and warm friendship, the intimate aspects between them indicated in this film have met with some skepticism.

The real life Mary Anning was an unabashedly fascinating figure, and her discoveries in paleontology made her something of a celebrity in her time, though it was a stardom couched in the strictures of her gender, so that many of her insights were not "officially" recognized, even as she was regularly consulted by scientists who had one big advantage: they were men. Anning worked in Southwestern England in and around a village called Lyme Regis, where fossils would routinely be uncovered among the cliffs prevalent in the region. One of the first scenes in the film in fact depicts Mary trudging out on a cold and muddy winter day to try to climb partway up a steep hillside to dislodge what looks like a big rock from a mudslide. It turns out to be just the latest of her fossil discoveries, which she takes back home to begin cleaning, under the watchful if slightly disapproving eye of her mother, Molly (Gemma Jones).

Another character culled from the actual historical record, Roderick Murchison (James McArdle) shows up at Mary's home with his seemingly mousy wife Charlotte in tow. Murchison is a "fan" of Mary's and offers to pay her handsomely for a little private tutelage and fossil hunting, which (again under the watchful and perhaps avaricious eye of Molly) Mary somewhat uncomfortably agrees to. In a kind of convenient piece of plotting, Roderick is called away and asks Mary to continue her mentorship in fossil hunting with Charlotte, who is suffering from depression after the loss of a child. Mary is once again a little perturbed by it all, but proceeds with her new "charge", with both a friendship and then something considerably more than merely a friendship ultimately burgeoning between the two women.

Ammonite has a solid enough premise, at least insofar as it presents two ostensibly "real" women who were obviously trailblazers and formidable presences in their own right (Charlotte's accomplishments as both a geologist and illustrator of fossils are evidently well known to those with an interest in this field). But the whole post-modernist gay plot point here seems kind of willfully melded on to the proceedings, and as such the film kind of ping pongs weirdly between almost clinical scenes of "science-ing" and florid, at times almost unintentionally comic, moments of female on female coupling. The performances never falter here, and both Winslet and Ronan do really credible work, and the film also offers a rather refreshingly drab account of what home life in the 19th century was like for village folk in Lyme Regis, but the film never really manages to work up much emotion, despite its powerful subtext.

Note: My colleague Brian Orndorf evidently had the same largely "meh" reaction to Ammonite that I did. You can read Brian's thoughts here.

Ammonite Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ammonite is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The IMDb lists the Red Monstro and a 2K DI as salient data points. As I've discussed in many reviews, I personally tend to prefer the look of Red digital capture to Arri Alexa, especially in low light situations, and that opinion is reinforced by the general appearance of this presentation. While natural lighting seems to have been utilized extensively, including some scenes apparently lit only by candles, there's little of what I call a "murky" look here, though it's probably unavoidable that fine detail levels can falter a bit in the dimmest moments. A lot of the film is graded toward rather cool, even icy, blue tones, as can be seen in several of the screenshots accompanying this review, but aside from that stylistic choice, the palette looks natural and is nicely suffused throughout. Detail levels on everything from the fabrics on costumes to even some of the supposed "fossils" is typically excellent. I noticed no major compression anomalies.

Ammonite Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ammonite features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 that springs to surround life during the outdoor scenes, where aspects like the roaring seas offer good immersion (no pun intended). A kind of plaintive score by Dustin O'Halloran and Volker Bertelmann which emphasizes solo piano also sounds surprisingly spacious throughout the film. A lot of the sound design is intentionally on the quiet side, and some of the interior scenes featuring two or three characters don't really offer a whale of a lot of engagement of the side and rear channels. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly throughout this problem free track. Optional English subtitles are available.

Ammonite Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Ammonite (1080p; 5:43) is an okay EPK featuring brief interviews with Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, and writer and director Francis Lee.

Ammonite Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some readers of my reviews may be aware of my longstanding frustration with "fictionalization" as exemplified by my deconstruction of "fake news" promulgated in the old Jessica Lange feature Frances, ostensibly about Golden Age actress Frances Farmer. I just don't understand why filmmakers feel the need to "tweak" the actual historical record for supposedly "dramatic" purposes. That would seem to be especially true of Ammonite, since the film had the opportunity to present a more fact based account of what were evidently two of the most remarkable women of their era, Mary Anning and Charlotte Murchison. Winslet and Ronan are unsurprisingly effective in their roles, and the film's production design doesn't shy away from the dirtier, grimier aspects of village life in the 19th century, but this is an often really cold and static feeling film considering how hot and bothered the two central characters are at various times. Technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.