The Dig. (12A.)
Directed by Simon Stone.
Starring Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, Lily James, Johnny Flynn, Monica Dolan, Ken Stott and Ben Chaplin. On Netflix from January 29th. 111 mins.
A vaulted assemblage of British thespian faces, many of whom you will be able to put names to, have been busy excavating a hole Suffolk: Netflix hopes you'll look into it. It's an eve of war piece drama, a popular British costume drama subgenre. You'll be familiar with the summer of 1914 being represented by public schoolboys playing cricket on village greens, a lament at what a terrible waste of all that fagging the First World War would be. This though has various strands of the British class system being snobbish and sexist and ruminating on the fleeting nature of existence in the summer of 1939 as they dig up a 6th-century burial mound. All against a backdrop of a nation preparing to take on the Nazis.
This is a double based enterprise; based on a novel by John Preston which is based on the true story of the Sutton Hoo archaeological find. Widowed landowner Edith Pretty (Mulligan) employs the services of Basil Brown (Fiennes) to do the excavation work on a series of mounds on her land, despite the local Ipswich museum insistence that the humble, unschooled Brown doesn't have the training for such work. But what he turns up is of such exceptional interest that soon the British Museum (Stott) is barging in and taking control.
So there they are digging this hole, and it does seem like they are a tad overstaffed on this project. The themes and plot are entirely predictable, and there doesn't seem to be enough work to go around; you are constantly wondering how they are going to drag digging a hole out for nearly two hours. But they do and there is comfort in it, a pleasant restful and restorative familiarity. To be gently moved is still to be moved.
I do though think there is a tremendous comedy left uncovered here. When Fiennes doffs his cap to the lady of the house you pine for them to fully explore their Ted and Ralph dynamic, to mention the drainage in the lower field. Elsewhere, Lily James and Ben Chaplin as a newly married couple are a whole Carry On of thwarted desires and priggish recoil, battling over who gets to wear the Charles Hawtrey glasses in the relationship.
Directed by Simon Stone.
Starring Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, Lily James, Johnny Flynn, Monica Dolan, Ken Stott and Ben Chaplin. On Netflix from January 29th. 111 mins.
A vaulted assemblage of British thespian faces, many of whom you will be able to put names to, have been busy excavating a hole Suffolk: Netflix hopes you'll look into it. It's an eve of war piece drama, a popular British costume drama subgenre. You'll be familiar with the summer of 1914 being represented by public schoolboys playing cricket on village greens, a lament at what a terrible waste of all that fagging the First World War would be. This though has various strands of the British class system being snobbish and sexist and ruminating on the fleeting nature of existence in the summer of 1939 as they dig up a 6th-century burial mound. All against a backdrop of a nation preparing to take on the Nazis.
This is a double based enterprise; based on a novel by John Preston which is based on the true story of the Sutton Hoo archaeological find. Widowed landowner Edith Pretty (Mulligan) employs the services of Basil Brown (Fiennes) to do the excavation work on a series of mounds on her land, despite the local Ipswich museum insistence that the humble, unschooled Brown doesn't have the training for such work. But what he turns up is of such exceptional interest that soon the British Museum (Stott) is barging in and taking control.
So there they are digging this hole, and it does seem like they are a tad overstaffed on this project. The themes and plot are entirely predictable, and there doesn't seem to be enough work to go around; you are constantly wondering how they are going to drag digging a hole out for nearly two hours. But they do and there is comfort in it, a pleasant restful and restorative familiarity. To be gently moved is still to be moved.
I do though think there is a tremendous comedy left uncovered here. When Fiennes doffs his cap to the lady of the house you pine for them to fully explore their Ted and Ralph dynamic, to mention the drainage in the lower field. Elsewhere, Lily James and Ben Chaplin as a newly married couple are a whole Carry On of thwarted desires and priggish recoil, battling over who gets to wear the Charles Hawtrey glasses in the relationship.
