‘Ammonite’: Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan star in period romance from ‘God’s Own Country’ director
Francis Lee's new drama explores the relationship between 19th century palaeontologist Mary Anning and socialite Charlotte Murchison.
By Will Stroude
From God’s Own Country director Francis Lee comes Ammonite, the sweeping new romantic period drama starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan.
Academy Award winner Winslet is Mary Anning, the famed 19th century palaeontologist whose fossilised findings on the English coastline prove every bit as revolutionary as her love for socialite Charlotte Murchison (played by Academy Award nominee Ronan).
Ammonite has already elicited controversy after Anning’s relatives dismissed her characterisation as a gay woman as “pure Hollywood”, but as a woman living in the early 1800s with no documented relationships with men and plenty of well-documented intense emotional connections with women, there’s plenty of reason to believe Anning’s story is another example of the hidden queer stories which have long been erased from the history books.
Now, the first trailer for Ammonite has arrived ahead of the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month and we’re preparing ourselves for another emotional battering from Lee, who created a modern LGBTQ classic in 2017’s God’s Own Country.
The filmmaker recently opened up about the artistic license he took with Anning’s personal life, telling Entertainment Weekly: “I was very drawn to that period because of this wonderful research into same-sex female relationships of the period that are all very well documented with letters to each other, demonstrating wonderful, life-long, passionate, intense, emotional relationships.
“And I was fascinated to set this film in a period that was totally patriarchal and where women were completely owned by their fathers or their husbands, and looking at how they live within that world, and also in a world where, at that time, the medical profession believed that women had no sexual-pleasure organs.
“So, the idea of two women actually in a relationship together was just not a thought anybody ever had within society.”
Watch the first trailer for Ammonite below: