Flintenweibe

Operation mincemeat is one of the most well known clandestine operations during WW2, due to the fantastic nature of it all; creating an entirely fictional man and have a dead guy pose as him.

And seeing these events recreated by Brittish top actors is great fun, but sadly, it feels like the filmmakers didn't trust the audience to be interested in the history on it's own, but needed to add dramatic hurdles that never happened in real life, and of course, a tacked on love triangel.

Note to filmmakers: just because Colin Firth has starred in other great romantic films, it doesn't automatically make all his films great romances by default, especially since the love triangle in this film feels like an afterthought that only distracts from the far more interesting real story.

It really doesn't help that the the main female character is painted as naive and childlike, not only being carried away in said love triangle, but also breaking down and endangering the operation when threathened by a german spy, again, something completely made up by the filmmakers and which only makes central characters look incompetent for the sake of needless drama.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point.

Now, in spite of all this, it still is an interesting film, with some great Brittish dry humor and excellent actors, and most importantly, the real historical operation which the film is based on is fascinating enough on it's own to make the film worth a watch.

Director and producer of this travesty, Francis Lee, apparently said that with this film he wanted to give Mary Anning "the relationship she deserved", to which I say; What did the poor woman ever do to you?

If anyone don't understand why this is a massive insult to Mary Anning and Charlotte Murchison, just imagine a film made about any famous historical man portrayed in this way. It'd be ridiculous to take say, George Cuvier or Charles Darwin and completely eject all their scientific endeavors from a film about them in favor of injecting a fictional and unrealistic gay love story into their lives, complete with an explicit sex scene that looks more like the work of a sweaty teenage boy than a respected filmmaker. The very notion would be deemed absurd if it was a male scientist, but with women it's apparently OK.

The real Mary Anning was a huge pioneer within paleontology, made even more remarkable by the fact that she was both a woman, and working class in a time where nearly all other scientists and their institutions were exclusive to men from the upper class. But the film doesn't really showcase any of it, all her amazing scientific work is shoved to the far background whilst the writer/director seems far more interested in speculating what Mary Anning's sex life was like.

Now, Francis Lee is a gay man himself, and I liked his previous film, God's own Country, which I thought handled the trials of gay men in a small town excellent, but what Francis Lee seems to have failed to realize is that in using famous historical women to tell a gender-swapped version of God's own country, instead of a progressive gay drama he plays into massively sexist notions that women's professional work doesn't matter and the most interesting about them is their sexual and romantic relationships, and the idea that women can't have platonic relationships worth telling stories about, they need to be sexual.

Not only does the film greatly reduce the work of Mary Anning, but Charlotte Murchison, in the film portrayed as a just a bored housewife that needs to have her depression cured by romance, was a competent geologist in her own right, but this is COMPLETELY ignored in this film. Also ignored was the fact that people couldn't just have casual lesbian relationships and kiss openly without fear of consequences in 1800s England, and treating it as such does all real lesbians who had to stay in the closet or be forced into loveless marriages for the sake of appearances a great disservice.

And it's not even a good romance between them, both main actresses look bored throughout and I literally saw more chemistry between the protagonist and a fossilized ichtyosaur than with her co-actor.

If you want a good lesbian historical drama, just watch Gentleman Jack instead, if you just want to see Kate Winslet topless, just watch Titanic instead, and if you want a good film about paleontologist Mary Anning... well, I can't think of a good film about that, but you certainly won't find it in Ammonite.

This is partially a story about the meaninglessness of war, and partially a story about star-crossed lovers, but the main theme recurring through both deals with the protagonist's inner conflicts as he winds up changing allegiances multiple times throughout, sometimes through choice, sometimes necessity.

Now, it really requires a lot of suspension of disbelief in the beginning of the story to buy that a German soldier and a woman in the resistance would be able to both sneak off from their duties and none of their fellow soldiers on either side noticing, but if you can look past this, this is a well-produced and well acted drama that manages well to depict the cruelty of war and tough choices without feeling gratuitous or cliched, though the ending is rather ambiguous and will leave you thinking.