'Ammonite' Trailer: Kate Winslet And Saoirse Ronan Are Star-Crossed Lovers

Written and directed by Francis Lee, Ammonite is the stuff of awards contender dreams: an LGBT period drama romance headlined by an Oscar winner and Oscar nominee. And indeed, who wouldn't want to see Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan romance each other in what appears to be a British spin on last year's sublime Portrait of a Lady on Fire?

It's a concept that has won over many critics since Ammonite made its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, and wins over a fair few more as the movie makes its festival rounds. But it has earned several negative reviews, including one from /Film's Jason Gorber at TIFF, who wrote, "Like the fossils encrusted in rock there's a core aspect of this film that's certainly worth digging out, it's just not entirely excavated through its execution, still trapped in its austere and distanced style. Lee's film lacks the precision of a Barry Lyndon or the exquisitely intense gaze of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, making Ammonite's deliberate pace and chilly characters feel little more than trinkets in a sea-side store – fine to look at, but little more."

I still remain intrigued by Ammonite despite the divisive reviews, though it's uncertain when I'll get a chance to decide for myself, as the trailer only teases that the film is "coming soon." No release date has yet been set for either theaters or VOD.

Here is the synopsis for Ammonite, which also stars Fiona Shaw, Gemma Jones, Alec Secareanu, and James McArdle.:

In the 1840s, acclaimed self-taught palaeontologist Mary Anning works alone on the wild and brutal Southern English coastline of Lyme Regis. The days of her famed discoveries behind her, she now hunts for common fossils to sell to rich tourists to support herself and her ailing widowed mother. When one such tourist, Roderick Murchison, arrives in Lyme on the first leg of a European tour, he entrusts Mary with the care of his young wife Charlotte, who is recuperating from a personal tragedy. Mary, whose life is a daily struggle on the poverty line, cannot afford to turn him down but, proud and relentlessly passionate about her work, she clashes with her unwanted guest. They are two women from utterly different worlds. Yet despite the chasm between their social spheres and personalities, Mary and Charlotte discover they can each offer what the other has been searching for: the realisation that they are not alone. It is the beginning of a passionate and all-consuming love affair that will defy all social bounds and alter the course of both lives irrevocably.