Beautiful and graceful is the best way that I can describe the movie The Dig on Netflix. It’s not some action-packed spy Thriller or Guy Ritchie film about the underbelly of London Society, it is a film built on the essence of human existence, how we are connected to each other and the past. The story centers around the famous Sutton Hoo excavation in 1939, one of the largest excavations in English history when archaeologists discovered ships, tools, and treasures from the Dark Ages, which proved wrong, up to that time all their notions about what had actually happened during the Dark Ages. But the film isn’t so much about the excavation as it is about the people who worked on it and the woman whose land all it was discovered on. As I said this story is about human existence and The Connection to the Past, I repeat that to emphasize its importance.
The character played by Carrie Mulligan hire an excavator you start digging and what her and her late husband had thought regarding what was beneath the earth on their property. The excavator is played by Ralph Fiennes, who is not really an archaeologist, but an excavator like his father before him and his grandfather. Essentially, he knows what he’s doing, but he doesn’t have the education like Premiere archaeologists in England. But you immediately figure out that you have these lost souls who come together to discover something extraordinary. A grieving Widow who is sick and dying, and wants to fulfill the wishes of her late husband. You have an excavator who for all intense and purposes is shunned by the upper elite of archaeologists, but also has a reputation of being one of the best diggers. What they discover will be remarkable, but also what they discover about each other will be more remarkable. What makes this film extraordinary is how all the characters relate to each other, especially when the archaeologist for the Museum of Great Britain comes down and try to take over. You have the stuck-up archaeologist played by Ken Stott, who starts to become more vulnerable throughout the film when he realizes that the excavator is truly one of a kind thus making his stereotypes fall apart. You have the married couple who seem to be married for convenience, but don’t really love each other. The wife, played by Lily James, seems to be misunderstood and wants to do more, but because she’s a woman can’t seem to get ahead. The way these characters all interact with one another is great, it’s dramatic and comedic and you feel connected to these characters. Because I think in a lot of ways are all misunderstood and if you’re looking for a metaphor in this film it is as they dig deeper and tear down the barriers surrounding what they find, it’s their own barriers that are being torn down as human beings you are trying to connect to one another. The great English stories generally have this as a central theme. The cinematography is also wonderful acting like it’s own character in the film, lus the way the weather plays havoc on the dig as well as how they shot this movie basking in natural sunlight makes it a very beautiful film. I really did enjoy what I do highly recommended, but it’s not a perfect film.
If I have one chief complaint about the film, its what I consider a forced love story between the wife who seems misunderstood and the brother of the main character who is about to go off to war. Now I understand wartime romances and sometimes when you’re trapped in a marriage you will find the love you think you should have outside of that marriage. But I also think that there should be a subtlety to that story that doesn’t overshadow the rest of a film. And I kind of feel like that part of film towards the end was forced. Because what the story really is about to tell these people come together for this archaeological dig and then trying to protect it against the backdrop of World War II has Germany start bombing England. For anybody that knows anything about the Sutton Hoo excavation, they essentially have to rebury it to protect it against the devastation of War. In fact, most of the prominent excavation of the site didn’t happen until after the war and continued well into the 1960s. If you read any of my reviews, you know I always talk about pacing and well for the most part the pacing in the film is very good, there are moments that it staggers a little bit. Most of the time it happens with the scenes that are supposed to connect to other scenes, but where this film is strongest is where you have interaction between the main characters, whether it’s on the Dig or discussing business-related matters. The other great scenes are the ones with the son learning about archaeology and assisting, even when he runs away the excavator’s house and everybody is frantic to find him. They’re such sweet moments of all of these people connecting to one another that helped drive the story. But overall, the film does an exceptional job in focusing on the main point of the story which is the excavation itself and how everybody’s lives connect to it. All the scenes that focus on that narrative makes the film stronger and everything else that takes away from that makes the film less than perfect.
The Dig is a beautiful movie and it’s perfect for streaming content. Although, I definitely would have enjoyed seeing this in the theater, I believe it is one of the best films on Netflix. They can certainly be categorized as a wartime story because it is on the eve of Great Britain entering into World War II and subtly showing how everybody’s life will change after this great discovery, but they also that the war could not destroy what they had discovered and the history that they had learned which I think is a big part of it because Nazi Germany was trying to rewrite history heard what the film shows and such a beautiful and graceful way are the connections between these characters and how that will change because of this one archaeological event that connects them to the past. But I do think that the characters are delightful and there are some very humorous moments that display to happiness of these people before war is beset upon them. The cinematography and Landscape really adds a new dimension to the greatness of this film. It may not necessarily be one that you go back and revisit although it is certainly rewatchable and I’m anxious to do that again to see if I discover anything new. But the performances are fantastic and you generally get that when you cast great British actors. So I highly recommend The Dig if you’re looking for something new on Netflix and for those that just want a beautiful film where good acting drives the story instead of action and violence, especially if it’s a movie about our past and how we connect to it. After all the Sutton Hoo excavation is very interesting in itself, but what this film does perfectly is connect us to the people who were there and the human experience of finding such a treasure. Because those who are apart of such an extraordinary event usually find out something about themselves that they may not have realized… and that is the perfect narrative for any great. Watch it and I guarantee you will not be disappointed or quickly forget this beautiful Netflix film.
