The Dig
As WWII looms, a wealthy widow hires an amateur archaeologist to excavate the burial mounds on her estate. When they make a historic discovery, the echoes of Britain's past resonate in the face of its uncertain future.
- Released: 2021-01-14
- Runtime: 112 minutes
- Genre: Drama, History
- Stars: Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, Lily James, Johnny Flynn, Ben Chaplin, Ken Stott, Archie Barnes, Monica Dolan, Eamon Farren, Paul Ready, Peter McDonald, Stephen Worrall, Danny Webb, Robert Wilfort, James Dryden, Joe Hurst, Christopher Godwin, Ellie Piercy, Bronwyn James, Des Kaliszewski, Jonah Rzeskiewicz, Jack Bennett, John Macmillan, Arsher Ali, Amelia Stephenson
- Director: Simon Stone
Comments
- JurijFedorov - 22 October 2022
Romance melodrama, not about science or archeology
I kinda expected a dry movie about excavation. So a lot of technical details, a lot of nerds talking about science and history. Maybe a recreation of the ship burial to show us how the graves were created. It's obviously not the most exciting topic for a movie, but someone who likes history would like such a movie. Instead it's pretty much what you expect, a very lazy movie about melodrama and various love triangles.
Firstly, the ages of the characters are all wrong. The owner who was an old lady is here much younger than the digger. She's also for some reason seemingly in love with him. Why would a young blonde like an old married man? At any rate this is just silly romance melodrama for no reason. Clearly in real life she would want someone to look after her son not some weird researcher not interested in such matters. Then an archeologist married couple joins in. And in reality they were in their 20's.. Here the guy is much older and gay for some reason. And she's flirting with another guy at the dig even quite openly in front of her husband for some reason as she can't help it. Meanwhile her husband is hanging out with a man. Again, the real guy was not gay and they remaining married for a long time after this. She's also just hired for her low weight. In real life she was a hardcore academic and already a recognizable name in the right circles not some shy young chick.
It's a modern movie so they need some minorities, women, and gays at the dig. Which is maybe what ruined the story overall as there is way too much focus on the emotional life of the people there and pretty much all of it is invented for the movie. The movie could have been history focused only. Dry but with a point. Instead it just tries to be romantic melodrama and add on a lot of progressive ideas and points to something that should have been more mature. I think that's an issue too as the topic is for men while the movie is aimed at women. If the wrong viewers watch the movie you will have more dissatisfied viewers. Besides this it just plays up the melodrama a bit too much. Way too much romance, suffering, crying, whining, sulking. Again, it's about the emotional life of the people there.
