Movie Review of “The Dig” and a side bar about what movies teach

“The Dig” might be seen by some as a boring period piece. It’s true that it doesn’t have much to say or move at much of a brisk pace.

At the same time, it’s a rare film that projects a warm comfort staying put. The relationships between the characters and the ephemeral tone makes this a nice place to spend two hours.

Ralph Fienes plays an amateur archeologist constrained by the rigidity of British class (Ralph Fiennes): He’s the apotheosis of working class roots who has learned everything of the trade first-hand and is shut out of the mainstream archeological community.

His counterpart, Edith (Carey Mulligan), is a young widow of a higher class sitting in a wealthy manor that she would trade for company or a sense of having done something. She loves with a son, a domestic staff she keeps at a distance and a quiet sense of regret over lives she could have lived including that of being an archeologist herself.

The event that ties them together is the discovery of a Viking ship beneath her estate. The two form a beautiful platonic relationship (something cinema is severely lacking in) of admiration that bridges class in addition to the fact that one of the two got to fulfill their lives ambitions.

As the dig gets bigger, more characters are led into the story which includes a love triangle between Edith’s cousin (Johnny Flynn), a junior archeologist from the museum (Ben Chaplin) and his wife (Lilly…