Sutton Hoo Drama The Dig Is a Lovely, Meditative Artifact

For people looking for a meditative break from our current turmoil-filled reality, The Dig is a wonderful escape. There are many reasons this film might have piqued initial interest: First, it stars Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes and a fine cast of other notable actors; second, you could tell from the trailer that this is one of those British films, a period piece filled with silences and restraint; and finally, it’s based on a real-life historical event, the excavation and discovery of the Sutton Hoo site (an Anglo-Saxon burial ground) in Suffolk in 1939.

Those were the reasons I’d decided to watch The Dig as soon as I saw the first windswept image of Mulligan, looking both determined and grim, much before I saw the trailer. But soon after I had settled into the couch, I found myself gradually immersed in the slow lyricism of the film. Right from the opening frame—which shows Fiennes sat on a rowboat, being ferried with his bicycle across a river; oars gently pulling through the lapping waters, birds in the sky, golden hour in the horizon—I could sense myself coming to a still. It felt like a balm.

The Dig tells the story of Edith Pretty (Mulligan), landowner and widowed mother, who employs Basil Brown (Fiennes), a self-taught excavator/archaeologist, to dig up the large mounds of earth on her Sutton Hoo property. When Brown asks Pretty why she didn’t go through the usual route of contacting a museum, Pretty replies that she did, but the impending second World War means that resources are scant, and Brown was the best bet—even though he has been described as a challenging man, with unorthodox ideas. The war looming in the background adds a measure of urgency to the otherwise unhurried pace of the film.

As Pretty and Brown stand on the land, considering the project ahead of them, you understand the camaraderie between them—and their silent regard for each other. In my view, it’s not romance brewing between the two, even though Pretty is rather lonely in that big mansion in the middle of an English countryside. Her son’s fantastical tales of science-fiction and adventure bring a smile to her face, for one. But Pretty seems to be looking more for company and meaning to her frail life, and Brown’s stories and surmises about what lies beneath are something to go on.

Not much else happens by way of the plot. Brown digs, at first alone, then with some help from the Pretty household. It quickly becomes apparent that the Sutton Hoo site has historical importance. That’s when the big shots from the British Museum come to throw their weight around. A small team of archaeologists then starts working on the site, carefully dusting away through layers of Suffolk soil.

The drama lies within the interactions between these people who have come together for the project: Pretty and Brown, the team of experts from the British Museum headed by Charles Phillips (Ken Stott) and including Stuart (Ben Chaplin) and Margaret Piggot (Lily James), Pretty’s cousin Rory Lomax (Johnny Flynn) and Brown’s wife May (Monica Dolan). As the archaeological team digs deeper, they also unearth emotions and motivations within themselves and those around them. Stott is delightfully annoying as the overbearing British Museum veteran, sneering at Brown’s lack of credentials and spluttering when put in his place by Pretty. James is endearingly conflicted as a young wife and junior archaeologist, trying to find her place in her marriage and the work field—even in her attraction to the roguish Rory.