Movies
Winslet, Ronan have seaside rendezvous in ‘Ammonite’
Lesbian love story requires effort to extract its treasures
Before sitting down to watch “Ammonite,” the new film from writer/director Francis Lee, it might be helpful to know a little bit about the history of paleontology – specifically, about a woman named Mary Anning.
Anning grew up in a poor family in Lyme Regis, a town on the English Channel, where she helped with the family business of selling fossils from the region’s geologically rich beaches and cliffsides to the many tourists attracted by its seaside resorts. At the age of 12, she found what would eventually become the first correctly identified full skeleton of a marine dinosaur known as an ichthyosaur; it was a breakthrough discovery that played a major role in reshaping the way scientists (and the rest of the world) understood prehistoric life on earth, and she would not only go on to make several more important finds, but to contribute significantly to the scientific study of the subject.
Unfortunately for Mary, she also lived in the 19th century. That meant that, as a woman, though she was widely known and respected for her discoveries, she was not eligible for membership in the Geographical Society of London or any of the other respected bodies of the scientific community; as a result, credit for her findings was often co-opted by the men who consulted her and bought her specimens, and she continued to toil away in near-anonymity, selling fossils and trinkets out of her seaside shop, for much of her life.
Today, Anning gets something much closer to the recognition she deserved in the scientific record. To the world at large, however, her name remains mostly unknown; but, thanks to Lee (whose 2017 debut feature “God’s Own Country” was acclaimed by critics as one of the best queer films in recent memory), that is about to change – though perhaps not solely for the reason she might have preferred.
In “Ammonite,” we are introduced to Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) years after that sensational childhood find, living out her days in near-debilitating poverty with her elderly mother (Gemma Jones), still harvesting fossils from the beach. Hard and sullen, she barely bothers to conceal her misanthropy from the tourists who come into her shop, and maintains a near-reclusive distance from residents of the town. The drudgery of her existence begins to change, however, when a “gentleman scientist” offers to pay her handsomely to act as a companion for his wife, Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan), who suffers from “melancholia,” while he is away on an expedition. Unable to refuse the financial boost, she grudgingly accepts, and though their relationship gets off to a difficult start, it soon becomes clear that these two sidelined women are awakening to something between them that has always been denied in a world where their parameters are defined solely by men.
It should be no spoiler to clarify that this premise is the set-up for a lesbian romance, played out against a picturesque period backdrop and full of the kind of forbidden, subversive eroticism that seems to come so naturally from the intricate process of unfastening old-fashioned garments. Lee’s movie derives much from all these environmental factors and more as it tells a deceptively simple story about two seemingly complex women who really are only looking for perhaps the most basic need of all; but unlike many such historical tales of furtive and forbidden love, it does not rely solely on the trappings and tropes of romantic fiction, and rather uses them only as a canvas for a studied, near-hypnotic exploration of human behavior that, while it may not entirely eschew sentiment, tempers and redefines it in a way that keeps it from becoming inauthentic.
To accomplish this, Lee doubles down on the strengths that elevated “God’s Own Country” above the majority of other rural queer love stories on film. Most obvious, perhaps, is the keen sense of environment mentioned above, in which the setting takes on a role in the story itself, and the characters’ interaction with their environment and circumstances defines much of how they relate to each other throughout. The director’s meticulous approach to capturing the world of an early 18th-century oceanside village makes a viewer feel and smell the crisp sea air firsthand.
Lee’s greatest gift, however, is both more subtle and more profound, and it’s one that infuses his work both as writer and director of his work so far. Having carefully set up the circumstances of his narrative within a viscerally realistic place and time, he lets it all unfold with an almost ascetic sparseness of dialogue. What is spoken serves to illuminate little more than the necessary details that move the ostensible plot; but what is unspoken is a rich, layered, and nuanced observation of human experience that is both specific and, to most of us, alien, yet also universal and recognizable to any viewer who reads the volumes contained between the lines.
It’s that last part that might prove challenging to some viewers; “Ammonite” is the kind of movie that can easily feel slow-moving to audiences who are partial to storytelling that involves more direct action and fewer inscrutable gazes. For those who are up for it, however, the subtext that conveys the real narrative of Lee’s film – the one that charts a shared inner journey, not the external factors that surround it – is every bit as thrilling as a non-stop action blockbuster.
While the movie’s filmmaker must get full kudos for his remarkable talent in making that happen, it would be hard for him to pull it off without the help of his leading players. Winslet and Ronan are both among modern cinema’s most accomplished and versatile performers, and it’s clear they each relish the chance to take a deep dive into their skill set for these complex roles. Winslet’s dowdy, frumpish, and middle-aged Mary blossoms before our eyes to reveal the beauty that has been right in front of us all along, while Ronan’s morose, hollow Charlotte transitions into a vibrant, confident woman by her side. These inner evolutions are enacted in tandem, like a dance between two prima ballerinas, complementing and counterpointing each other in a way that seems as effortless as breathing, but is in fact the product of a lifetime of difficult work and study – with a prodigious amount of talent thrown in, of course.
It should be noted that “Ammonite” is not a biopic, nor even a true story in the sense that most of us would think; there really was a Charlotte, who was the real-life Anning’s lifelong friend and correspondent after staying with her in Lyme Regis for a few months, but beyond that, much of what Lee shows us on film is pure speculative fiction. This, of course, makes it somehow feel all the truer.
“Ammonite” is a movie which, like the fossils excavated by its characters, requires fastidious effort in order to extract its treasures. That might make it unappealing for many, but for those who have passion for the work, the payoff is well worth the labor.
Movies
A Sondheim masterpiece ‘Merrily’ rolls onto Netflix
Embracing raw truth lurking just under the clever lyrics
It’s been long lamented by fans of the late Stephen Sondheim – and they are legion – that Hollywood has hardly ever been successful in transposing his musicals onto the big screen.
Sure, his first Broadway show – “West Side Story,” on which he collaborated with the then-superstar composer Leonard Bernstein – was made into an Oscar-winning triumph in 1961, but after that, despite repeated attempts, even the most starry-eyed Sondheim aficionados would admit that the mainstream movie industry has mostly offered only watered-down versions of his works that were too popular to ignore: “A Little Night Music” was muddled into an ill-fitted star vehicle for Liz Taylor, “Sweeney Todd” became a middling entry in the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp canon, “Into the Woods” mutated into a too-literal all-star fantasy with most of its wolf-ish teeth removed, and we’re still waiting for a film version of “Company” – not that we would have high hopes for it anyway, given the track record.
Of course, most of those aficionados would also be able to tell you exactly why this has always been the case: erudite, sophisticated, and driven by an experimental boldness that would come to redefine American musical theater, Sondheim’s musicals were never about escapism; rather, they deconstructed the romanticized tropes and presentational glamour, turning them upside down to explore a more intellectual realm which favored psychological nuance and moral ambiguity over feel-good fantasy. Instead of pretty lovers and obvious villains, they showcased flawed, complicated, and uncomfortably relatable people who were just as messed-up as the people in the audience. Any attempt to bring them to the screen inevitably depended on changes to make them more appealing to the mainstream, because they were, at heart, the antithesis of what the Hollywood entertainment machine considers to be marketable.
To be fair, this often proved true on the stage as well as the screen. Few of Sondheim’s shows, even the most acclaimed ones, were bona fide “hits,” and at least half of them might be considered “failures” from a strictly commercial point of view – which makes it all the more ironic that perhaps the most purely “Sondheim” of the stage-to-screen Sondheim efforts stems from one of his most notorious “flops.”
“Merrily We Roll Along” was originally conceived and created more than 40 years ago, a reunion of Sondheim with “Company” book-writer George Furth and director Harold Prince, based on a 1934 play by George Kaufman and Moss Hart. Telling the 20-year story of three college friends who grow apart and become estranged as their lives and their goals diverge, it wasn’t ever going to be a feel-good musical; what made it even more of a “downer” was that it told that story in reverse, beginning with the unhappy ending and then going backward in time, step by step, to the youthful idealism and deep bonds of camaraderie that they shared in their first meeting. On one hand, getting the “bad news” first keeps the ending from becoming a crushing disappointment; but on the other hand, the irony that results from knowing how things play out becomes more and more painful with each and every scene.
The original production, mounted in 1981, compounded its challenging format with the additional conceit of casting mostly teen and young adult actors in roles that required them to age – backwards – across two decades; though the cast included future success stories (Jason Alexander and Giancarlo Esposito, among them), few young actors could be expected to convey the layered maturity required of such a task, and few audiences were capable of suspending their disbelief while watching a teenager play a disillusioned 40-year old. This, coupled with a minimalist presentation that left audiences feeling like they were watching their nephew’s high school play, turned “Merrily We Roll Along” into Sondheim’s most notorious Broadway flop – despite raves reviews for the show’s intricately woven score and the xtinging candor of its lyrics.
Fast forward to 2022, when renowned UK theater director Maria Friedman staged a new revival of the show in New York. In the interim, “Merrily” had undergone multiple rewrites and conceptual changes in an effort to “fix” its problems, abandoning the concept of using young performers and opting for a more “fleshed-out” approach to production design, and the show’s reputation, fueled by a love for its quintessentially “Sondheim-esque” score, had grown to the level of “underappreciated masterpiece.” Inspired by an earlier production she had helmed at home a decade earlier, Friedman mounted an Off-Broadway version of the show starring Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez – and suddenly, as one critic observed, Sondheim’s biggest failure became “the flop that finally flew.” The production transferred to Broadway, winning Tony Awards for Groff and Radcliffe’s performances, as well as the prize for Best Revival of a Musical, in 2024.
Sondheim, who died at 91 in 2021, participated in the remount, though he did not live to see its premiere, nor the success that officially validated his most “problematic” work.
Fortunately, we DO get the chance to see it, thanks to a filmed record of the stage performance, directed by Friedman herself, which was released in limited theaters for a brief run last year, but which is now streaming on Netflix – allowing Sondheim fans to finally experience the show in the way it was designed to be seen: as a live performance.
Embracing the conventions of live theatre into its own cinematic ethos, this record of the show gives viewers the kind of up-close access to its performances that is impossible to experience even from the front-row of the theatre. The performances it gives us are impeccable: Groff’s raw and deeply deluded Frank Shepard, the ambitious composer who sells out his values and alienates his friends on the road to success and wealth; Radcliffe’s mawkishly loyal Charlie Kringas, who remains loyal to the dream he shared with his best friend until he can’t anymore; and Mendez’ heartbreaking perfection as Mary Flynn, the wisecracking good-time girl who rounds out their trio while concealing a secret passion of her own – each of them bring the kind of raw and vulnerable honesty to their roles that can, at last, reveal both the deep insights of Sondheim’s intricate lyrics and the discomforting emotional conflicts of Furth’s mercilessly brutal script.
Yes, it’s true that any filmed record of a live performance loses something in the translation; there’s a visceral connection to the players and a feeling of real-time experience that doesn’t quite come through; but thanks to unified vision that Friedman shepherded and instilled into her cast – including each and every one of the brilliant ensemble, who undertake the show’s supporting characters and embody “the blob” of show-biz hangers-on who are central to its cynical theme.
Honestly, we can’t think of another Sondheim screen adaptation that comes close to this one for embracing the raw truth that was always lurking just under the clever lyrics and creative rhyme schemes. For that reason alone, it’s essential viewing for any Sondheim fan – because it’s probably the closest we’ll ever get to having a “real” Sondheim film that lives up to the genius behind it.
Movies
Trans-driven ‘Serpent’s Skin’ delivers campy sapphic horror
Embracing classic tropes with a candid exploration of queer experience
It’s probably no surprise that the last decade or so has seen a “renaissance” in horror cinema. Long underestimated and dismissed by critics and ignored by all the awards bodies as “lowbrow” genre films, horror movies were deemed for generations as unworthy of serious consideration; relegated into the realm of fandom, where generations of young movie fanatics were left to find deeper significance on their own, they there inspired countless future film artists whose creative vision would be shaped by their influence. Add to that the increasing state of existential anxiety that has us living like frogs in a slow-boiling pot, and it seems as if the evolution of horror into what might be our culture’s most resonant form of pop art expression was more or less inevitable all along.
Queer audiences, of course, have always understood that horror provides an ideal vehicle to express the “coded” themes that spring from existence as a stigmatized outsider, and while the rise of the genre as an art form has been fueled by filmmakers from every community, the transgressive influence of queerness – particularly when armed with “camp,” its most surefire means of subversion – has played an undeniable role in building a world where movies like “Sinners” and “Weapons” can finally be lauded at the Oscars for their artistic qualities as well as celebrated for their success at providing paying audiences with a healthy jolt of adrenaline.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the boldest and most biting entries are coming from trans filmmakers like Jane Schoenbrun (“I Saw the TV Glow”) – and like Australian director Alice Maio Mackay, whose new film “The Serpent’s Skin” opened in New York last weekend and expands to Los Angeles this week.
Described in a review from RogerEbert.com as “a kind of ‘Scanners’ for the dolls,” it’s a movie that embraces classic horror tropes within a sensibility that blends candid exploration of trans experience with an obvious love for camp. It centers on twenty-something trans girl Anna (Alexandra McVicker), who escapes the toxic environment of both her dysfunctional household and her conservative hometown by running away to the “Big City” and moving in with her big sister (Charlotte Chimes). On her first night in town, she connects with Danny (Jordan Dulieu), a neighbor (the only “hottie” in the building, according to her sister) who plays guitar in a band and ticks off all her “edgy” boxes, and they have a one-night stand.
The very next day, she starts a new job at a record store, where she connects – through the shared experience of an intense and unexpected incident – with local tattoo artist Gen (Avalon Faust), a young woman she has seen in psychic visions, and who has been likewise drawn to her. The reason? They are both “witches,” born with abilities that give them a potentially deadly power over ordinary humans, and bound together in an ancient supernatural legacy.
It goes without saying that they fall in love; together, they teach and learn from each other as they try to master the mysterious magical gifts they both possess; but when Danny coincidentally books Gen for a tattoo inspired by his earlier “fling” with Anna, an ancient evil is unleashed, leading to a string of horrific attacks in their neighborhood – and forcing them to confront the dark influences within their own traumatic histories which may have conjured this malevolent spirit in the first place.
Confronting the theme of imposed trans “guilt” head on, “Serpent’s Skin” emanates from a softer, gentler place than most horror films, focusing less on scares than on the sense of responsibility which seems naturally to arise just from being “different.” Both McVicker and Faust bring a palpable feeling of weight to their roles, as if their characters are carrying not only their own fate upon their shoulders, but that of the world at large; their performances evoke both the haunted sense of emotional wariness and the heavy sense of responsibility that comes from sharing a layer of awareness that both elevates and isolates them. At the same time, they bring a tender-but-charged eroticism to the sapphic romance at the center of the film, echoing the transgressive and iconic “lesbian noir” genre while replacing the usual amoral cynicism with an imperative toward empathy and social responsibility.
All of this helps to make the film’s heroines relatable, and raises the stakes by investing us not just in the defeat of supernatural evil, but the triumph of love. Yet we can’t help but feel that there’s something lost – a certain edge, perhaps – that might have turned up the heat and given the horror a more palpable bite. Though there are moments of genuine fright, most of the “scary” stuff is campy enough to keep us from taking things too seriously – despite the best efforts of the charismatic Dulieu, who literally sinks his teeth into his portrayal of the possessed version of Danny.
More genuinely disturbing are the movie’s scenes of self-harm, which both underscore and indict the trope of trans “victimhood” while reminding us of the very real fear at the center of many trans lives, especially when lived under the oppression of a mindset that deplores their very existence.
Still, though Mackay’s film may touch on themes of queer and trans existence and build its premise on a kind of magical bond that makes us all “sisters under the skin,” it is mostly constructed as a stylish tribute to the classic thrillers of an earlier age, evoking the psychological edge of directors like Hitchcock and DePalma while embracing the lurid “shock value” of the B-movie horror that shaped the vision of a modern generation of filmmakers who grew up watching it – and even if it never quite delivers the kind of scares that linger in our minds as we try to go to sleep at night, it makes up for the shortfall with a smart, sensitive, and savvy script and a rare depiction of trans/lesbian love that wins us over with chemistry, emotional intelligence, and enviable solidarity.
What makes “The Serpent’s Skin” feel particularly remarkable is that it comes from a 21-year-old filmmaker. Mackey, who built the foundation of her career behind the camera with a series of low-budget horror shorts in her teens, has already made an impact with movies ranging from the vampire horror comedy “So Vam” (released when she was 16) to the horror musical “Satanic Panic” and the queer holiday shockfest “Carnage for Christmas.” With her latest effort, she deploys a confidence and a style that encompasses both the deep psychological nuance and guilty-pleasure thrills of the genre, rendered in an aesthetic that is grounded in intimate queer authenticity – yet remains daring enough to take detours into the surreal and psychedelic without apology.
It’s the kind of movie that feels like a breakthrough, especially in an era when it feels especially urgent for trans stories to be told.
Movies
The Oscar-losing performance that’s too good to miss
‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’ now streaming
Now that Oscar season is officially over, most movie lovers are ready to move on and start looking ahead to the upcoming crop of films for the standouts that might be contenders for the 2026 awards race.
Even so, 2025 was a year with a particularly excellent slate of releases: Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” which became rivals for the Best Picture slot as well as for total number of wins for the year, along with acclaimed odds-on favorites like “Hamnet,” with its showcase performance by Best Actress winner Jessie Buckley, and “Weapons,” with its instantly iconic turn by Best Supporting Actress Amy Madigan.
But while these high-profile titles may have garnered the most attention (and viewership), there were plenty of lesser-seen contenders that, for many audiences, might have slipped under the radar. So while we wait for the arrival of this summer’s hopeful blockbusters and the “prestige” cinema that tends to come in the last quarter of the year, it’s worth taking a look back at some of the movies that may have come up short in the quest for Oscar gold, but that nevertheless deserve a place on any film buff’s “must-see” list; one of the most essential among them is “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” which earned a Best Actress Oscar nod for Rose Byrne. A festival hit that premiered at Sundance and went on to win international honors – for both Byrne and filmmaker Jane Bronstein – from other film festivals and critics’ organizations (including the Dorian Awards, presented by GALECA, the queer critics association), it only received a brief theatrical release in October of last year, so it’s one of those Academy Award contenders that most people who weren’t voters on the “FYC” screener list for the Oscars had limited opportunity to see. Now, it’s streaming on HBO Max.
Written and directed by Bronstein, it’s not the kind of film that will ever be a “popular” success. Surreal, tense, disorienting, and loaded with trigger-point subject matter that evokes the divisive emotional biases inherent in its premise, it’s an unsettling experience at best, and more likely to be an alienating one for any viewer who comes to it unprepared.
Byrne stars as Linda, a psychotherapist who juggles a busy practice with the demands of being mother to a child with severe health issues; her daughter (Delaney Quinn) suffers from a pediatric feeding disorder and must take her nutrition through a tube, requiring constant supervision and ongoing medical therapy – and she’s not polite about it, either. Seemingly using her condition as an excuse to be coddled, the child is uncooperative with her treatment plan and makes excessive demands on her mother’s attention, and the girl’s father (Christian Slater) – who spends weeks away as captain of a cruise ship – expects Linda to manage the situation on the home front while offering little more than criticism and recriminations over the phone.
Things are made even more stressful when the ceiling collapses in their apartment, requiring mother and child to move to a seedy beachside motel. Understandably overwhelmed, Linda turns increasingly toward escape, mostly through avoidance and alcohol; she finds her own inner conflicts reflected by her clients – particularly a new mother (Danielle Macdonald) struggling with extreme postpartum anxiety – and her therapy sessions with a colleague (Conan O’Brien, in a brilliantly effective piece of against-type casting) threaten to cross ethical and professional boundaries. Growing ever more isolated, she eventually finds a thread of potential connection in the motel’s sympathetic superintendent (A$AP Rocky) – but with her own mental state growing ever more muddled and her daughter’s health challenges on the verge of becoming a lifelong burden, she finds herself drawn toward an unthinkable solution to her dilemma.
With its cryptic title – which sounds like the punchline to a macabre joke and evokes expectations of “body horror” creepiness – and its dreamlike, disjointed approach, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” feels like a dark comedic thriller from the outset, but few viewers are likely to get many laughs from it. Too raw to be campy and too cold to invite our compassion, it’s a film that dwells in an uncomfortable zone where we are too mortified to be moved and too appalled to look away. Though it’s technically a drama, Bronstein presents it as a horror story, of sorts, driven by psychological rather than supernatural forces, and builds it on an uneasy structure that teases us with the anticipation of grotesqueries to come while forcing us to identify with a character whose lack of (presumably) universal parental instinct feels transgressive in a way that is somehow even more disquieting than the gore and mutilation we imagine might be coming at any moment.
And we do imagine it, even expect it to come, which is as much to do with the near-oppressive claustrophobia that results from Bronstein’s heavy use of close-ups as it does with the hint of impending violence that pervades the psychological tension. It’s not just that our frame of vision is kept tight and limited; her tactic keeps us uncertain of what’s going on outside the edges, creating a sense of something unseen lurking just beyond our view. Yet it also helps to put us into Linda’s state of mind; for almost the entire film, we never see the face of her daughter – nor do we ever know the child’s name – and her husband is just a strident voice on the other end of a phone call. The effect keeps us feeling as trapped as she does, boxing us squarely into her dissociated, depressed, and desperate existence with nothing but resentment and dread on which to focus.
Anchoring it all, of course, is Byrne’s remarkable performance. Vivid, vulnerable, and painfully real, it’s the centerpiece of the film, the part that emerges as greater than the whole; and while Oscar may have passed her over, she delivers a star turn for the ages and gives profound voice to a dark side of feminine experience that is rarely allowed to be aired.
That, of course, is the key to Bronstein’s seeming purpose; inspired by her own struggles with postpartum depression, her film feels like both a confession and an exorcism, a parable in which the expectations of unconditional motherly love fall into question, and the burden placed on a woman to subjugate her own existence in service of a child – and a seemingly ungrateful one, at that – becomes a powerful exploration of feminist themes. It’s an exploration that might go too far, for some, but it expresses a truth that those of us who are not mothers (and many of us who are) might be loath to acknowledge.
Uncomfortable though it may be, Bronstein’s movie draws us in and persuades our emotional investment despite its difficult and unlikable characters, thanks to her star player and her layered, puzzle-like screenplay, which captures Linda’s scattered psyche and warped perceptions with an approach that creates structure through fragments, clues and suggestions; and while it may not land quite as squarely as we might hope, in the end, its bold and discomforting style – coupled with the career-topping performance at its center – are more than enough reason to catch this Oscar “also-ran” before putting this year’s award season behind you once and for all.
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