BEFORE: Good news, I've tested COVID-negative twice now, first on a home test and then today at a walk-in lab. So, I'm done with testing, and I can go back to work at the theater on Thursday night, dealing with the public again, telling them to all wear their masks while milling about in the lobby after the screening. AND we can go to Atlantic City next month, for a Sunday-to-Tuesday thing, I may have to watch a couple movies in advance, but I think I can do that this week (Hel-LOO Doctor Strange!) and then I'll have the reviews ready to post before our trip. Yep, it's cheating but I think I earned it, and it keeps the chain unbroken.
Lily James carries over from "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"
THE PLOT: An archaeologist embarks on the historically important excavation of Sutton Hoo in 1938.
AFTER: Well, I'm not going to say that Lily James plays the exact same character in both yesterday's film and today's, but there are notable distinctions - yesterday she played an author in 1946, and in this film she's a budding archaeologist in 1938. BUT in both films, she's the focal point of a love triangle, and in both films she has to choose between two men, and in both films she ends up giving back a wedding ring. However, there are more differences, in yesterday's film she had to break up with her American soldier fiancé, and in today's film she had to break up with her English archaeologist husband - and in yesterday's film her publisher was the token pre-gay rights gay man, and in today's film, it's her husband who apparently prefers the company of other men. STILL, I get the feeling that several screenwriters are using the same playbook, over and over.
This is also another film set during the start of World War II - yesterday it was 1941's invasion of Guernsey, as seen in flashback, tonight it's the U.K.'s official announcement regarding entering the war in 1938, in response to Germany refusing to leave Poland. (Possibly similar to how Russia is refusing to leave Ukraine, but let's hope the similarities don't continue, because nobody wants World War III - right?). At this momentous time in British history, a wealthy land-owner, Mrs. Pretty, decides to hire an excavator to learn what's inside those mysterious mounds on her property, she just feels they couldn't possibly be natural hills, that's all. Well, geez, there's really only one way to find out, isn't there?
She hired self-taught amateur archaeologist Basil Brown, also an expert on the various types of dirt found in the Suffolk area, and well, I guess somebody has to be. His previous employers at the Ipswich Museum try to lure him back with more pay and the chance to work on the excavation of a Roman villa, but he stays with the job for Mrs. Pretty. Whether there's an attraction between them is perhaps grounds for debate, but Brown stays faithful to his wife, who occasionally visits the site. Brown finds rivets from a ship in the mounds, suggesting that perhaps someone important was buried here, in a ship that was sailed up the river and then carried on land to a place it could be buried, and the implications of that are that perhaps the Anglo-Saxons weren't savages as previously thought, they must have had some engineering skills.
But news of Brown's discovery spreads, and a team of archaeologists is sent from Cambridge, and they declare the site to be of national importance, which gives them authority over the dig and means that anything found would most likely be earmarked for the British Museum. So much for "finders keepers" I guess. Meanwhile Edith Pretty's health is declining, and also meanwhile German air raids have started over London, and British RAF training planes are seen passing over the site. And in the midst of all this is the aforementioned love triangle, as the neglected Peggy (the pretty archaeologist with giant glasses) turns to Edith's cousin Rory, who was hired to assist with the digging and taking photos of what was found.
This is great fare if you enjoy period pieces, not so much if you like a bit of action in your movies - this is more of an inaction movie, as the digging and the preservation of the site mostly proceeds at a snail's pace. Just be aware that this is based on a true story, but in real life things didn't all go down as depicted here - the married archaeologists, Stuart and Peggy Piggott, were the aunt and uncle of the author of the novel this film is based on, and they were never anywhere near this excavation. Sorry.
Also starring Carey Mulligan (last seen in "Promising Young Woman"), Ralph Fiennes (last seen in "The King's Man"), Johnny Flynn (last seen in "Emma."), Ben Chaplin (last seen in "Birthday Girl"), Ken Stott (last seen in "King Arthur" (2004)), Archie Barnes (last seen in "The Batman"), Peter McDonald (ditto), Monica Dolan (last seen in "Official Secrets"), Danny Webb (last seen in "A Little Chaos"), Robert Wilfort (last seen in "The Huntsman: Winter's War"), James Dryden (last seen in "Tulip Fever"), Joe Hurst (last seen in "Ready Player One"), Paul Ready (last seen in "The Death of Stalin"), Christopher Godwin (also last seen in "Emma."), Ellie Piercy, Bronwyn James, John Macmillan (last seen in "Hanna"), Arsher Ali, Eamon Farren (last seen in "Lion"), Amelia Stephenson.
RATING: 5 out of 10 glasses of barley water (it's an earlier, healthier version of lemonade, apparently)
No comments:
Post a Comment