It's likely she was never a lesbian (as per Time and the Smithsonian), and once again her important work has to be overlooked by some silly political nonsense of the day. I say this as a woman who loves women and works in the STEAM field. And in Mary Annings' own words “The world has used me so unkindly, I fear it has made me suspicious of everyone.” Charlotte Murchinson was also done a disservice here, as her contributions to the scientific community were overlooked altogether.
With that out of the way, if we ignore the gross misrepresentation of real historical figures and their relationships (I imagine Mary would not be too pleased about the omission of her beloved dog Tray, nor her only surviving sibling), it would have been a wonderful exploration into the love lives into lesbian relationships between class lines and during a time which would not have accepted either such a relationship. If we were to ignore that which I've outlined, it would have been a wonderful film: Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan's performances were strong and a joy to watch. But we can't, or at least I can't ignore what it missed out on.
Shame.
I'd be lying if I told you the movie swept me of my feet. But I enjoyed it nevertheless, more for what it was then for the story itself. Let me explain.
It is a quite movie that uses very little dialogue and pretty much relies on picture and acting performances. The scenery and costumes are great. And since Kate and Saoirse are two of my favorite actresses I reveled in watching them both play together. And, no, I don't mean it like THAT !!!
The story is what it is and I am sure many will dislike it. Which is ok, I don't like each movie I see, either. It is rather predictable and honestly I couldn't see it going any other way. At the same time I don't feel overwhelmed by the topic or having it rubbed in my face like it happens often with this kind of story. But this movie isn't about that, it's not there to fight for something. Like the synopsis said it's a story about two women who find something they've been looking for in each other.
Whether you get something out of it depends on your willingness to engage into the movie in the first place.
I think I'm going knock this movie because I didn't like it at all, and I was right to be biased before I watched it.
I'd say the worst Sapphic movie for me after "La vie d'adele", so let me explain right away why.
For me, emotion in movies is definitely something that comes with music, I couldn't think that without music,--so I'm in love with soundtracks, they remind me of the sadness, feelings in that movie-- but in this movie, the music was so little, and what happened was so poorly used that in some scenes I looked at the screen like I said :sparkles: :sparkles: where's the Spice :sparkles: :sparkles: .
Second, elements from all kinds of masterpiece Sapphic films have been stolen, but they have not used beautiful, so there is a beach, there is a figure of friends from ex, I don't know, there is a separation, something has been copied from a lot of movies, but there is no sadness of separation, there was no hesitation in gazing, in short, there was no emotion.
In addition: I expected the soundtrack the scandal, which I became obsessed with translating the movie's trailer, but I couldn't find it on any platform at the time, to be in the movie, but again the disappointment is again the disappointment.
Review by IHateBadMovies.comVIP 8BlockedParent2021-02-15T22:41:25Z— updated 2021-03-25T18:02:53Z
The biggest problem that this movie has is that it came out within a year of Portrait of a Lady On Fire and thus is often compared to that movie. Is it as good as that movie? No, of course not - that movie is among the all-time greats. But this movie is still excellent and that should be good enough. First and foremost, Winslet is incredible. Her character walks such a delicate line throughout the movie - at first starting out as a dour and lonely woman and then going through several other phases (it seemed to me as though her makeup was different at certain times in order to soften up her appearance). The role is so nuanced that I can imagine few actresses being able to pull it off. Saoirse Ronan was also extremely well-cast and had to go through her character's own transformation. While this film doesn't have the highs of "Portrait" in some ways I thought it was more interesting because we saw the story primarily through the eyes of the troubled heroine whereas in Portrait the story seemed to be primarily from the visitor's perspective. This resulted in the audience having a real feel for her heartache throughout.