Ammonite

Set in Lyme Regis, on England’s rocky southern coast, in 1840, Francis Lee’s (‘God's Own Country’) explosive lesbian romance stars Kate Winslet as acclaimed real-life palaeontologist Mary Anning (famous in her time for having excavated the skeleton of an ichthyosaur before she reached her teens) and Saoirse Ronan as the sickly Charlotte Murchison, who Anning agrees to care for in exchange for some much-needed cash. So far, so true to life, but Lee’s daring move is to posit that their friendship blossomed into an intense love and need for each other…

‘Winslet is ferocious here—a performance that’s powered by steam locomotive, made unstoppable… When together, the lovers ignite. And their world—England as almost parodically grey and grim—comes alive with them. [The film] expresses intimacy through texture and sound—the crunch of pebbles, the scrape of tools against bone, the rustle of skirts. It’s a secret world, a cocoon inhabited by two women who have spent their lives suffocated by others. Their love is a metamorphosis…’—Clarisse Loughrey, Independent