A Summer of Queer Cinema
Writer-director Francis Lee’s follow up to his stunning 2017 debut feature God’s Own Country, immerses us in the imagined day-to-day life of an often overlooked historical figure, English fossil collector and palaeontologist Mary Anning, in the absorbing, exquisitely crafted Ammonite. Mary (Kate Winslet) shares a humble but well-kept home with her ailing widowed mother Molly (Gemma Jones) in the rugged Dorset coastal town of Lyme Regis in the 1840s. One gets the sense that their hand-to-mouth existence has been the same for many years, with Mary searching the nearby beach for fossils, however harsh the weather might be, to sell to tourists in their small shop, while Molly stays at home to prepare their meals and polish the figurines that represent her eight deceased children….. extract review: James Kleinmann in the Queer Review
