Many things about this film disappointed me. I'll start by saying that many comments I saw here seem to think that people who didn't like it simply didn't get all the silences and the nuances of the film. That's rather pretentious, really. I entered this experience expecting nuance and complexity, for all of what the story promised beforehand - women, science, homossexuality, all of which in small english town in the 1800s. Still, I was left disappointed. I can't shake off the feeling that in trying to give the characters depth, the script invested so much in their sadness and melancholy that it felt to me just like another form of being unidimensional. You see, if you explore only how dull, emotionless and taciturn a person is, they become this one thing only. It's bizarre how the film only allows them to display emotions after they have fallen in love and started their relationship. You could argue that that was the point - how they saved each other from the loneliness that they both had to put up with. But I insist that it wasn't a good depiction of that either. For you to get involved with someone you can't be the walking corpse of a human being to begin with. Where does love even blossom when you find life so unbearable as they seem to do?
And here I enter my main critique: the film focus so much on showing the contrast of how miserable they are before each other and how their relationship saved them that I believe they had to pretty much bury Mary Anning's story. Now, I know that there's a "Green Book"-like controversy about this film, and that her family has complained that there's no evidence that she was gay, etc. But you see, after watching the film, I don't think we even need to go there. It just pays no tribute to her loving of science. It shows us some scattered scenes of her cleaning fossils, examining them, but it doesn't explain her main discoveries, the impact that they had in the field, why are they special at all. It also throws at us something about the sexism of the age, the suppresssing of her name, but that's just so badly explored. It's like the writers sat together and said "I mean, let's just mention it, it couldn't hurt". Finally, what brakes my heart the most is that this woman was really unique. Can you imagine that she would actually wake up before dawn, in a cold place, to go to a seafront and explore ammonites? She wasn't even recognised for it, she was just that passionate. Yet, the film shows every scene of her being utterly miserable All.The.Time. I do not imagine that she would be prancing and singing, but I can't understand why wouldn't they include a scene of her having the time of her life alone at the beach, smiling after finding something remarkable. That would make for such a great psichological study! A single woman in those days, never married, no children, who loves to go discover ancient rocks, by her own, at the seashore. Honestly, that's what this should have been. Instead, all the scenes of her life and interests seem to be just filling space.
I could go on. Side characters are very shallow. The illness of the mother is never explained further and her entire persona is only shown if she's interfering with her daughter and the couple. The scene when she dies is so emotionless and makes so little difference to the movie that she might as well have been dead from the start. The men who come into the shop for Mary Anning's findings are non descriptive and generic, including the husband of her lover, whose interest for Mary Anning's work serves just as plot point for the two women to get acquainted. He's so interested one day, the next he's like "Yeah, can you take care of my wife? see ya". And there's also the whole health condition of this one. It's explained that she's depressed, but then out of the blue she gets in such a bad physical state that a doctor gets worried that she might die. But where did all that come from? What happened? And how come it came and went without any further explanation?
Because Kate Winslet is in the movie I couldn't help but remember Titanic as I watched it. That was a real story with a fictional romance on top of it, but James Cameron made sure to be so thorough about the real disaster that I actually remember the date that the ship sank. It's a historical tragedy that most people only know because a film depicted it with care and respect. It's a completely different story but I do think that there was something to learn there: if you're making up a love story on top of real people's lives, at least be truthful to them.
And here I enter my main critique: the film focus so much on showing the contrast of how miserable they are before each other and how their relationship saved them that I believe they had to pretty much bury Mary Anning's story. Now, I know that there's a "Green Book"-like controversy about this film, and that her family has complained that there's no evidence that she was gay, etc. But you see, after watching the film, I don't think we even need to go there. It just pays no tribute to her loving of science. It shows us some scattered scenes of her cleaning fossils, examining them, but it doesn't explain her main discoveries, the impact that they had in the field, why are they special at all. It also throws at us something about the sexism of the age, the suppresssing of her name, but that's just so badly explored. It's like the writers sat together and said "I mean, let's just mention it, it couldn't hurt". Finally, what brakes my heart the most is that this woman was really unique. Can you imagine that she would actually wake up before dawn, in a cold place, to go to a seafront and explore ammonites? She wasn't even recognised for it, she was just that passionate. Yet, the film shows every scene of her being utterly miserable All.The.Time. I do not imagine that she would be prancing and singing, but I can't understand why wouldn't they include a scene of her having the time of her life alone at the beach, smiling after finding something remarkable. That would make for such a great psichological study! A single woman in those days, never married, no children, who loves to go discover ancient rocks, by her own, at the seashore. Honestly, that's what this should have been. Instead, all the scenes of her life and interests seem to be just filling space.
I could go on. Side characters are very shallow. The illness of the mother is never explained further and her entire persona is only shown if she's interfering with her daughter and the couple. The scene when she dies is so emotionless and makes so little difference to the movie that she might as well have been dead from the start. The men who come into the shop for Mary Anning's findings are non descriptive and generic, including the husband of her lover, whose interest for Mary Anning's work serves just as plot point for the two women to get acquainted. He's so interested one day, the next he's like "Yeah, can you take care of my wife? see ya". And there's also the whole health condition of this one. It's explained that she's depressed, but then out of the blue she gets in such a bad physical state that a doctor gets worried that she might die. But where did all that come from? What happened? And how come it came and went without any further explanation?
Because Kate Winslet is in the movie I couldn't help but remember Titanic as I watched it. That was a real story with a fictional romance on top of it, but James Cameron made sure to be so thorough about the real disaster that I actually remember the date that the ship sank. It's a historical tragedy that most people only know because a film depicted it with care and respect. It's a completely different story but I do think that there was something to learn there: if you're making up a love story on top of real people's lives, at least be truthful to them.
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