The Dig (2021)

(Netflix Streaming, May 2022) British but not necessarily well-mannered to a fault, director Simon Stone‘s The Dig juices up the true story of the Sutton Hoo major archeological discovery on a British estate into a tale of jurisdictional infighting, jealousy and passionate affairs. It’s an odd mix indeed, and I’m still not sure whether it works except on the most basic of terms. Part of my doubt has to do with an ultra-niche topic matter, and how it’s being sexed-up (by way of the novel on which the film is adapted) to include drama where there wasn’t in the first place. It does not help that the film is slow-paced to a fault: at 112 minutes, it spends a lot of time on establishing shots and building romantic tension. It’s hard to be against the result – heaven knows we could use more cerebrally-minded films that don’t go from one action sequence to another – but I would be exaggerating if I said that I’m all that enthusiastic about the result. Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes and Lily James are cute, though: They dig, they find, they argue, they fill back the hole – cue the end title cards explaining what happened next. All right, then.