Carey Mulligan in Netflix Period Drama Pale

Imagine a faded photograph of a bouquet of flowers. The blushing rose has mellowed into apricot and gold glowing in the color of wheat, as what was once a tangible object with weight and fragrance is reduced to a piece of paper broken by time. Someday soon, that paper will disintegrate as well, a melancholy idea that is expressed rather poetically in director Simon Stone’s otherwise stifling adaptation of Excavation. The subjects of this period drama are buried treasures and repressed desire, ephemeral things that – much like flowers or photographs – crumble when exposed to oxygen.

The film is based on the 2007 novel by John Preston, which dramatized the 1939 excavation of a 6th century Anglo-Saxon ship burial. near the English country enclave of Woodbridge. As one would expect from this rapid succession of dates, time and the ephemeral nature of human existence are major themes. And frankly, with an evocative metaphor at the center of the story – that would be the wooden vessel itself, a once imposing structure compressed into mulch by centuries underground – you’d be a fool not to run with it. Indeed, each character of the film, which retains a romantic significance, carries its own memento mori in their wan British chest. But if time flies and life is short, why spend so much hanging around?

Inertia defines Excavation, who has a confident visual style and a frustrating approach to storytelling. At first it seems like we have a love affair. Image of ‘feminine’ feminine fragility, Mrs. Pretty (Carey Mulligan) suffers from heart disease that makes her quiet lifestyle a medical necessity as well as an aristocratic luxury. The widowed owner spends her afternoons dressing for dinner in the hopes that Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes), the gruff archaeologist and laborer she hired to excavate a mysterious mound on her property, will join her. He never does, although Basil’s wife May (Monica Dolan) knowingly notes Basil’s fondness for the invalid mistress of the mansion and her precocious son, Robert (Archie Barnes).

The subtle, almost imperceptible undercurrent of eroticism in Pretty and Brown’s dynamic eventually dies out, which is just as good considering that Mulligan and Fiennes’ chemistry really only works in the rare moments of film crisis. Yet Mulligan sits on the sidelines, his emotional palette diluted with expressions drawn in sleek woolen coats. No matter how assertive her character was, she was born out of her upper class status, and as with the owner of the BBC-HBO protagonist historical series Gentleman Jack, the viewer must decide for himself whether asserting his privilege as landowner should be seen as empowering women. But Pretty’s right becomes invaluable when Excavation turns into a distinguished version of an ’80s snobs vs slobs fraternal party film, as a condescending group of British Museum doctoral students threaten to separate Brown from his beloved dig.

Alas, as much as the British Museum deserves to be shot, this conflict is not going anywhere either. But it does introduce a handful of new characters who will become part of the plot. Chief among these is Lily James as Peggy Piggott, the neglected wife of archaeologist Stuart Piggott (Ben Chaplin); like Mrs. Pretty, Peggy is plagued with emotional pain that she cannot express. As the digs unfold, new finds at the dig site give everyone an intellectual chance in the arm – and, in fact, these are some of the most invigorating scenes in the film. In between, everyone is waiting: for the rain to stop, for a verdict on the owner of these newly discovered treasures, for the distant thunder of war to explode over their heads – which he ends up doing. do, without lasting consequences.

As these modest narrative milestones slowly pass, Stone and cinematographer Mike Eley pass the time with elegant compositions – a pair of shots juxtaposing Brown and Pretty curled up like embryos in their respective beds are particularly beautiful – and stylized shoots that enhance and contrast with the period setting. The dusty and aged color scheme eloquently transmits the first, giving Excavation that faded photograph quality mentioned above. Meanwhile, the portable wide-angle camera in the first few scenes appears to promise aggressive visual revisionism to the The favourite or Jackie. But this too is a train that never arrives. And so, as the plots weave together into an elegiac statement about humanity as leaves floating on the tide of history, the effect is a less deep rapture and more of a whisper, “Finally.” For all the romantic ideas of the movie, the real experience of watching Excavation it’s a bit like sitting at a bus stop.