I was very much looking forward to this movie. The prospect of a film based on the discovery of Sutton Hoo, starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan, sounds like the perfect combination. And it starts out promisingly, with wonderfully rich period detail and stunning scenery. It becomes clear at once that this is a movie for the patient viewer, with its deliberate English dramatic pacing. Where it began to fall short, for me, is when it became apparent that there was going to be very little done with the fact that Sutton Hoo is perhaps the most significant archaeological site in Britain and its discovery and what was learned from it is an amazing tale. Some of that could have been woven into the narrative, just a bit. Otherwise, there was very little interpretive value in the film, and while it is a drama, the stories of the main characters, which are told with a bit of artistic license, are not very compelling or interesting. The side plots of minor characters even less so. The magnitude of the discovery, to me, was not successfully conveyed in this movie, which is a shame. In the end, it is a good British period drama with solid acting, adequate writing, high production values and beautiful cinematography, that just never quite gets to the point it should and could have. For folks who are not fans of British slow burn television, it will be mind-numbingly boring.
Review of The Dig
