Tag Archives: Fiona Shaw

Portrait of a Lady of Science

Ammonite

by Hope Madden

Writer/director Francis Lee’s Ammonite is a beautiful, insightful, lonesome film about European women falling in love in a time when patriarchal society only allowed that to happen because they weren’t paying attention. It boasts beautiful cinematography and two utterly stellar performances.

And it suffers by comparison to Celine Sciamma’s similarly summarized 2019 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth seeing—it absolutely is. Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan—simply two of the most talented humans ever to grace a film screen—play, respectively, British paleontologist Mary Anning and the married woman she falls for, Charlotte Murchison.

Anning is, in fact, among the most influential scientists in British history. Being a woman in Victorian England, her work was accepted while she herself was not. There’s an interesting tale to tell right there, but Lee chose that repressive cultural landscape as more of a backdrop, like the forbidding English Channel coast town of Lyme where Anning did her fossil hunting.

There’s no historical evidence that Anning was gay. There’s also no historical evidence that she was not, and filmmakers have told Emily Dickinson’s story dozens of times, only once actually addressing her sexual preference. If it’s OK for them to fictionalize, why not Lee?

The telling gives Winslet opportunity—partly thanks to excellent support from Fiona Shaw, Gemma Jones and Alec Secareanu—to present a woman so ill-used by and out-of-step with the world around her that she sees a miscarriage of justice in every exchange. Winslet is sharp and brooding, superior and insecure. It’s another quietly outstanding performance.

Aglow and lilting, Ronan is all warmth, offering a swoon-worthy counterpoint to Winslet’s chill. But there is something rushed about her attraction, and the deep, risky longing never feels authentic.

The affection, however, feels painfully true, and that’s at the core of a story about limited possibilities. Lee’s no Tarantino, but keep an eye out for bare feet and (less Tarantino-esque) insects. There is something slightly melancholy in these images of freedom and vulnerability that suit the effort.

Lee doesn’t try to answer every question he raises or resolve every conflict he presents. Instead, he brings us into a story of outsiders trying to define their own realities, however limited they may have to be.

Mummy Dearest

Kindred

by Hope Madden

It’s incredibly hard to make a film that feels fresh. Hell, it’s hard to get a film greenlit unless you can describe it to potential financers as a cross between something they’ve seen and something else they’ve seen. Most hope of originality is squashed early.

Writer/director Joe Marcantonio doesn’t exactly concern himself with originality in his feature debut, Kindred. He hopes a stellar cast and a thick, uneasy atmosphere can make up for some of his film’s predictability. For the most part, that does work.

Charlotte (Tamara Lawrance) and her white boyfriend Ben (Edward Holcroft) intend to leave their isolated English village for Australia. Now it’s just telling Mum (Fiona Shaw, as formidable a presence as ever).

The first Sunday lunch with Mum and step-brother Thomas (Jack Lowden) effectively conveys all we need to know about the family dynamics, and Marcantonio tidily establishes a sense of dread that will only deepen as the moments pass until the final credits.

Charlotte, you see, is pregnant, and when Ben dies suddenly, Mum and Thomas offer hospitality that will quickly turn into an inescapable prison.

There are hints early in the film that perhaps Ben is more like his Mum—a bit controlling and manipulative, even if he doesn’t honestly realize it. This sets an intriguing conflict that will obviously balloon once Mum’s in charge.

It’s Rosemary’s Baby meets Get Out. See? Two outstanding movies that you may not want to see watered down into a terribly obvious story, but again, a great atmosphere and several fierce performances will pull you through it.

Shaw’s turn is a magnificent slice of will and bitterness, but it’s Dunkirks Lowden who steals the film. In his hands, Thomas is so eerily sincere that you never know quite what to expect. He’s simultaneously sympathetic, pathetic, and sweetly terrifying.

Lawrance works valiantly against a script that frustrates you with its lazy plotting of constant near-escape and recapture. Worse still is the way Marcantonio ignores his underlying themes of racism—something that could have given the old Gothic style fable of bit of new life.