Ammonite

Reassessing Queer Depiction

By Sydney Hainy

Is this what queer love is? This is the question I asked myself while watching the 2020 film "Ammonite". Announced in 2019, the film boasted two big names, Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, engaging in a lesbian relationship. The proposition alone garnered a lot of attention, along with director Francis Lee, who produced the highly acclaimed gay romance film "God's Own Country."

The excitement is tarnished a bit, though, as the plot reveals another period drama between two female white women. Throughout the film, we follow Mary, played by Kate Winslet. She works tirelessly as a paleontologist, given little to no credit by her male peers. She is distant and cold, worn down from years of hard work with nothing in return. We are introduced to Charlotte, Saoirse Ronan's character, when her husband leaves her with Mary to cure her "melancholia", the 1840's term for depression, with walks and fresh sea air. Against Mary's insistence that she doesn't need an apprentice, she is forced to allow Charlotte to accompany her. From there, the rest of the film details them becoming closer, eventually resulting in romance. 

Speaking on "God's Own Country", Lee says, "I wanted to write about how difficult it is to be vulnerable enough to be loved." He applies this same narrative to "Ammonite", testing Mary's willingness to open up to her emotions in many ways. The commentary on masculinity within "God's Own Country" fairs well for this point. Still, it doesn't necessarily transfer over as easily to a lesbian relationship. Attempting to copy-and-paste a unique queer experience onto another denies the validity of both experiences. Where "God's Own Country" allows the audience to warm up to the characters, "Ammonite" remains cold and uncracked. It almost feels as though the film uses Mary's stony nature as a crutch for making the film inaccessible for the audience. 

The film is much more relevant in its discussions about class than gender and sexuality. In the first shot, a woman cleaning the floor is interrupted by men carrying a new exhibit to a museum gallery. The fossil, labeled with Mary's name, is removed and replaced with a new scientific name tag and finally enclosed in a glass case. This is starkly juxtaposed with Charlotte's wealth, evident from her primped appearance. The film tries to make a point of the feminine and masculine divide here, which I would push back against. The fact that one woman is required by her job to get "dirty" and the other does not hold any significance in the realm of femininity. 

The arbitrary act of "being put in someone else's shoes" for a few weeks does not mean you understand their lifestyle. This is evident in the climax scene. After returning to her husband and bourgeois reality, Charlotte invites Mary to visit and surprises her with a room to live in indefinitely. Charlotte is so out of touch with the lower class, she truly believes she is saving Mary from a life of "suffering" at work, even though Mary's work was the one thing she was passionate about. "You presumed I would be fitted into your life here like one of your relics in your fine glass case," Mary responds accordingly. The misunderstanding of class that undermines their entire relationship is finally displayed here for the audience to see.

Following this serious conversation, the film ends with the two women reuniting at the museum, insinuating that their differences are bridged because of their love. This over-simplified ending frankly undermines the themes about class present in the previous scene. 

At this point, we must assess if a queer romance is even vital to the plot in the first place. It seems clunky, rushed, and at times uncomfortable due to their significant age gap. Much of their relationship is rooted in the escape from a male-dominated society, which both women face. Mary is constantly being underestimated and neglected by the scientific community. Charlotte is being suppressed by her own husband into the role of a submissive wife. It bothers me that this seems to be the only basis on which their relationship lies. Once a film is placed in a time earlier than our own, it is much easier for directors to heavily rely on the narrative that women use lesbianism to escape from their position in a patriarchal society. Although women need to be liberated from this oppression, it is not inherently a result of queer love. This approach is counter-intuitive. It appears progressive but actually reinforces a stereotype of queer women while also bringing them back into the male gaze. 

In some ways, I feel that the same-sex relationship took away from the film's success in depicting the power dynamics between classes. Several scenes coincided with both of these topics, exceeding in intersecting class with sexuality and gender. While lesbians exist beyond the constructions of gender roles, it is not by choice. They are forced to adapt to the society that they are placed within. It is degrading to queer people to boil down our love to a plot point or a theme of breaking the gender divide. Because of this, the film doesn't fully explore what a queer relationship really is, at least not accurately. It's hard to critique representation because, as a community, we are severely lacking it. As a result, we are forced to succumb to examples that undermine, either subconsciously or not, what it is honestly like to be a lesbian. 

Why is there a pattern of lesbian films between two white feminine-presenting cis women with significant age gaps and alienated time periods? Media distances us so far from the lesbian experience that even a whisper of truth can feel long-awaited. On the other hand, consider how the male gaze is so uniquely inescapable for lesbians. We have been so commodified to the point that we will use any excuse as means to view intimate scenes between women on screen. While we think we are removing men from the narrative by objectifying women to make money while displaying their queer love, we have once again placed men right at the center of it. We are so removed from the film that we end up watching behind a layer of glass, untouchable no matter how hard we try. Queer media first has to be interactive before it can retreat back to inaccessibility. Until then, "Ammonite" can stand as a good representation of class, but not queerness.