Director: Simon Stone
Writers: Moira Buffini
Stars: Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, Lily James, Johnny Flynn, Ben Chaplin
Synopsis: An excavator and his team discover a wooden ship from the Dark Ages while digging up a burial ground on a woman’s estate.
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Few would disagree that the English countryside is a beautiful, serene place. When captured at its best it can lift a movie out of average mediocrity and into something worthy of watching. While that isn’t exactly the case with The Dig – which benefits as much from the subtle yet strong performances of both Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan – it certainly doesn’t hurt it.
Adapted from the novel by John Preston, which itself was based on the true story of an archaeological dig at Sutton Hoo on the eve of the Second World War, Simon Stone’s The Dig sees Carey Mulligan as Edith Pretty, a wealthy widow who believes the giant mounds on her land may just be the burial site of an ancient civilization. To that end, she hires Basil Brown, played by Ralph Fiennes. Basil is a hardworking and humble archaeologist, quiet and temperate, who believes the site could be as old as Viking, or Anglo-Saxon. He rides up on his bike and gets to work on digging the mounds, eventually making the huge discovery of an Anglo-Saxon ship, replete with riches, which seems to have been used as a burial site for a king. As more and more is unearthed, a cadre of academics descends upon the quiet countryside to take part in the discovery and claim it for their own. Meanwhile, all is not well with Edith Pretty; her son is concerned about her health, and as it gradually deteriorates, Basil becomes closer with the young boy in an attempt to help him cope.
The Dig is a really understated piece of cinema, featuring restrained performances from Fiennes, Mulligan, and the cast of characters who rotate through their lives for the duration of the dig. Ken Stott is typically stalwart as Charles Phillips, an academic who wants the find to be placed in the London Museum, and Lily James does what she can with an underbaked side plot that really didn’t need to be in here and doesn’t add very much to proceedings. Elsewhere Johnny Flynn makes an appearance as Pretty’s cousin Rory Lomax, a sort of freewheeling bachelor whose presence doesn’t amount to very much either. For all the distractions that take place during The Dig, it is clearly the central relationship between Basil and Edith Pretty which captivates. Fiennes and Mulligan are, of course, terrifically reliable and the kind of period drama on offer here is meat and potatoes for them both.
Unfortunately, there isn’t very much for them to sink their teeth into. The Dig is very slight, taking a much more meandering approach to proceedings than other dramas might. Only the spectre of the Second World War – hovering ominously in the background, threatening to boil over only on the rare occasion – provides any real sense of threat. Basil finds his work impeded by archaeological academics determined to claim the find for their own, while he must also navigate a relationship with Pretty’s young son, an aspiring space explorer who is given to running around the dig site with his toy rocket-ship.
The early scenes of The Dig are the strongest, before the cast of characters descend and everyone loses themselves in a mish-mash of plot devices that you feel are inserted purely to pad out the otherwise languid pacing. Fiennes and Mulligan play their respective characters with an undercurrent of longing, perfectly pitched, which carries the emotional load throughout as they negotiate the mounds and Basil’s fee. Later there is a romance between Lily James’ character (the real-life archaeologist Margaret Preston) and Rory Lomax (who is a completely fictional character) but this is so ham-fisted at times and superfluous that you wonder if James and Flynn thought they were making a different movie.
There are genuine moments of peril (a cave in traps Basil underground and only quick thinking and a bit of luck saves his life), as well as pathos, and the cinematography by Mike Eley is beautiful – capturing the wide, low skies of northern England in all their tempestuous glory. Were The Dig confident enough to focus on its main duo, perhaps wringing out a little more emotion between them in some of the later moments, then it might have been something really worthy of consideration. The superb acting and gorgeous cinematography, however, isn’t enough to stop The Dig from getting a little side-tracked and bogged down in unimportant side plots and characters who don’t add much to the story.
For all that, it is worth seeing if only for the great performances from Fiennes and Mulligan, surely two of the greatest actors of their generations.
