BEFORE: I know, I know, it's Super Bowl Sunday, which is like one of the biggest American holidays, somewhere between the minor arcana of Presidents' Day and Arbor Day and the major arcana of Halloween and Christmas. In terms of an eating holiday, it's not quite at the level of Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July, but it's getting there. We shopped for snacks yesterday - even though we'll focus more on the Puppy Bowl than football today - and felt we had to swing by a big supermarket on Long Island while my wife was buying cigarettes out there, just to insure we had a good selection to choose from.
BUT, I watched all the decent football-based films years ago, so it's not a holiday that I can reflect in my movie-watching - am I going to put the romance chain on hold just to watch "Draft Day"? No, I am not. So, it's still Galentine's Weekend, and watching this one today sets up the movie with the best TITLE for tomorrow, even if it may not be the most appropriate film for V-Day - how could I even know that without watching it first?
I've got a number of other period films coming up this week - two modern-set films right after this one, and then it'll be all corsets and frilly things for a short while. Fiona Shaw carries over from "Catch and Release".
THE PLOT: In 1840's England, acclaimed but overlooked fossil hunter Mary Anning and a young woman sent to convalesce by the sea develop an intense relationship, altering both of their lives forever.
AFTER: Mary Anning was a real person, back when collecting fossils was important, when humans were still trying to piece together what happened on this planet millions of years before humans made the scene, and honestly, it's all still a bit weird to speculate about. Land dinosaurs, sea dinosaurs, flying dinosaurs, all interacting with each other and eating each other, and the only way we know for sure this happened is from their fossilized bones and their coprolite (look it up...). Mistakes were made, sure, skulls got matched with the wrong bodies and brontosauruses became apatosauruses for a while, and I'm sure there were people who were dino-deniers, who said that such creatures never existed, despite all the physical evidence.
Whether Ms. Anning had lesbian lovers, or any relationships at all, is apparently speculation, but since we know that this was not something that people did openly back in the 1840's, it's certainly possible. Or, another viewpoint is that queer people today benefit somehow from the gradual "queering-up" of past historical figures, and if you can make a book or a movie that suggests that Abe Lincoln was gay (come on, you can have James Buchanan, isn't that enough?) or Gandhi, this helps the cause, sheds a new light on history, or at least grabs enough attention for you to get more eyeballs on your book or your movie. There's a streaming series now that's queer-claiming Emily Dickinson, obviously I don't have any evidence to the contrary, but she never got married (hmm...) and most of the dedications in her poetry collections were removed (hmm again) and was considered an eccentric, isolated genius (double hmmm). Her correspondence was burned after her death, so we'll never know - so it's possible, however the lack of evidence does not constitute evidence.
Back to Mary Anning - the film shows her growing closer to a younger married woman who's been placed in her care, to recover by the English seaside. Mrs. Charlotte Murchison is suffering from melancholia, which is Latin for "lack of fun", I think. Unfortunately for her, she lives in England, which didn't discover fun until after World War II. Also, what they didn't know about depression and other mood disorders back then could probably fill a few textbooks. Or maybe she just didn't want to be married, especially to the kind of man who wanted to study rocks, and would abandon her by the ass end of the English seaside for six weeks, hoping that would somehow improve her outlook. Look, I hate the beach myself for a number of reasons, but even I understand that some beaches are better than others. You don't want to spend time on the dreary ones by the rocky cliffs, maybe try the ones that have nice, soft sand, comfortable beach chairs, and those slamming tropical drinks with the cute umbrellas in them. (Maybe try Jamaica, I hear it's nice.). My point is that all beaches are not the same, and a doctor prescribing a seaside holiday should have taken that into account.
Attempts to follow the doctor's orders fall flat, partially because "bathing" back then at a seaside resort meant being put in this portable wooden wagon that got wheeled out into the surf as the tide was coming in, and after putting on a "bathing costume", the patient was expected to walk down a rickety set of steps into the surf, or they could remain inside the wagon as it filled with water and then they would slowly drown. As I said, the Brits wouldn't quite understand the concept of fun for a few more decades, and this is further evidence of that. And this "bathing" probably took place after a proper English brekkie that included baked beans, grilled tomatoes and black pudding. (I'd probably like that, but it's not for everyone.)
So after the near drowning and fever caused by the bathing incident, Mary is forced to get Charlotte some salve, and that means visiting Elizabeth Philpot, and it's strongly implied here that Mary and Elizabeth once had a relationship, and it ended badly. (It's OK, they all do, one way or another.) The salve works, but it also turns Charlotte gay. (I'm KIDDING, but for the Conservatives out there, this is one possible interpretation...). Once Charlotte recovers, she starts accompanying Mary on her rocky-beach walks to look for fossils. The women are also invited by the town doctor to attend a musical performance, and when they do, Mary sees Charlotte talking to Elizabeth Philpot. Whoops, there's the opportunity for a little love triangle between the three lesbians in town, and this doesn't sit well with Mary. However, it does force the issue, and Mary and Charlotte become lovers shortly after that.
It's funny, but this film, contrasted with another, highlights the essential difference between women and men, generally speaking. Think about "The Lighthouse", which I watched last year - if you take two men and place them in an isolated location by the dreary British shoreline, they'll go quite mad and try to kill each other. But if you do this with two women, well, you get a completely different result.
As Mary and Charlotte get intimate, the question still remains, however - did Charlotte's husband leave her for six weeks, or did he leave her for good? Ah, that would be telling. And can these two women thrown together by circumstance make their relationship work out, or would that perhaps be a little naive for two people stuck in a very conservative time and place? And what is the metaphor created by all these rocks and fossils, anyway? Does it all just symbolize what's hiding beneath the surface of what we can see, or is there another point being made? Mary's mother's little figurines have a deeper meaning here, so what's up with all the little cowrie shells and the relics on display in the museum cabinets? If you figure it all out, please let me know.
Me, I can't wait to see what movies that Hulu and IMDB recommend for me, after watching this one...
Also starring Kate Winslet (last seen in "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond"), Saoirse Ronan (last seen in "The French Dispatch"), Gemma Jones (last seen in "Rocketman"), James McArdle (last seen in "Mary Queen of Scots"), Alec Secareanu, Claire Rushbrook (last seen in "Spider-Man: Far From Home"), Nick Pearse, Mladen Petrov, Sam Parks.
RATING: 5 out of 10 "magic lantern" slides
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