In the 1840s, fossil collector Mary Anning lives with her ailing mother, Molly, who helps her daughter run a small shop in Lyme Regis, Dorset.

Mary spends the early mornings on the beach at low tide in search of fossils for the shop, with tiny ammonites being her most common find.

That night in their room at the Three Cups Hotel, Roderick treats Charlotte coldly, rebuffing her sexual advances and saying that now is not the time to have another baby.

Saddened by her own failed attempts to have a baby, Charlotte learns that the figurines which Molly cleans every day represent her eight deceased children.

That night, Charlotte meets and mingles with the townsfolk as an overwhelmed and jealous Mary smokes outside in the rain while watching through the window.

They watch a magic lantern show set to music before Mary leaves and returns home during the rainstorm.

In December 2018, it was announced Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan had joined the cast of the film, with Francis Lee directing the screenplay he wrote.

[15] Ammonite was set to world premiere at that year's Cannes Film Festival, prior to its cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[16] It was also selected to screen at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado in September of that year, prior to its cancellation also due to the pandemic.

[19][20] Ammonite has or is scheduled to be screened at several film festivals including Deauville,[21] Hamptons,[22] Mill Valley,[23] Newfest,[24] Ghent,[25] London,[26] Chicago[27] and Montclair.

The website's critical consensus reads, "The chemistry between Saoirse Ronan and a never-better Kate Winslet helps Ammonite transcend its period romance trappings.

"[33] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Club gave the film a B− for a lack of chemistry between the leads and an inconsistent tone: "this is a film that runs either burning-hot or bone-chilling cold, contrasting blue toes dipping into freezing, frothy sea water with flushed cheeks and tousled updos in post-coital repose".

[41] Lee defended his decision, saying in a series of tweets, "After seeing queer history be routinely 'straightened' throughout culture, and given a historical figure where there is no evidence whatsoever of a heterosexual relationship, is it not permissible to view that person within another context?

Would these newspaper writers have felt the need to whip up uninformed quotes from self-proclaimed experts if the character’s sexuality had been assumed to be heterosexual?