Leeds Review: Mary Anning carefully unearths a budding paleontologist

My introduction to English paleontologist Mary Anning was Francis Lee's aching lesbian romance, Ammonite, which came out in 2020 to a somewhat muted response (I quite liked it). Now, the historical figure is starring in another cinematic outing, and this one couldn't be more different than Lee's film. Swiss director Marcel Barelli has crafted a supremely charming animated take on Anning's childhood that is lean, engaging, and fiercely feminist. Making its UK premiere at the Leeds International Film Festival, Mary Anning is one of my favorite animated movies of the year.

Here, we meet Mary as a twelve-year-old living in her small seaside town of Lyme Regis. The year is 1811, and Creationism is very much the governing belief system of the town. This, despite the absolute plethora of fossils that can be found on the region's beaches. Those shores are where Mary's passion lives and soars. Encouraged by her father, Mary is a force of curiosity and discovery, animated with that forceful excitement of youth that sadly often dims by the time adulthood settles in. When Mary wakes up each morning, she barely has a thought in her head beyond getting out the door as quickly as possible, hoping to gather some fossils before she has to march off to school.

If the beach is where she feels the most free, and the most herself, the school is the exact opposite. The priest who runs the school and teaches the class is the epitome of the backward, misogynist attitudes of the time. Women are to be seen but not heard. They shouldn't be tromping around the beach or swimming in the sea (like Mary's classmate Fanny). While most of the other girls in class are prim and proper (and also bullies, go figure), Mary is so much not: her cheeks, ears, and nose are always red, colored by the elements as she explores. She wears heavy boots. Her dress is normally ringed with mud along the bottom. She doesn't blithely repudiate the priest's teaching; no, she's more forceful in her disagreement.

When tragedy strikes the family, Mary is left in a horrible predicament. The family might have to move to town, far from the shore, in the hopes of finding new work and a chance of paying off a mountain of debts. The only hope, as far as Mary can see, is to find a hitherto unseen fossil that she could sell for a fortune: a sclerotic ring, an eye bone that ancient creatures sometimes had. Joined by her brother Joseph and her new friend/ward Henry (along with some unexpected helpers along the way), Mary becomes determined to find this fossil, so she can remain by the sea and continue her scientific exploration.

Like Hola Frida earlier this year, I love how this film meets its historical subject during her childhood. (Of course, it helps that this historical figure had such an eventful childhood.) While the film doesn't feel like some didactic thing, I definitely came away from it inspired, and I imagine young viewers will feel the same. By showing a young girl flying in the face of forces that tried to put her down and keep her "in her place," it's a film that encourages viewers to blaze their own trail, pursue their passion, and ignore the naysayers. It's quite rock-and-roll that way.

And the film smartly leans into that with its soundtrack, which features a lot of upbeat pop-rock songs that are obviously asynchronous to the time period, but feel like such a perfect fit for the subject matter (the film opens with Edam Edam's song "Weirdo Forever," which feels like a kind of flag-planting). The music really speaks to how Mary was a girl, and then a woman, ahead of her time.

The lovely animation deserves mention, too: this world and these characters are rendered with beautiful art. Even with the often dreary weather and harsh elements, there's something very cozy about how this corner of the world is depicted. It makes you want to put on a big sweater and pour a cup of tea, maybe light a fire. The characters have fantastic designs, with the priest, the strange-acting Captain Curios, and Mary's dog Tray being particularly fun in their proportions. (Tray is such a good boy.)

With its short runtime (a bit over 70 minutes), I came away impressed by how much Mary Anning packs into every moment. There's a large cast of characters who feel fully fleshed-out, and the wider world is so legible: the various clashes of class, religion, science, etc. Even only witnessing this small slice of her life, you feel the weight and importance of who Mary was, and would become. I can imagine young girls (and boys, too) watching this movie and being inspired to look more closely at the world around them, to see what they might find. Any movie that makes you see the world differently is a cause for celebration, especially when it's one that's done with as much art and heart as Mary Anning.

Mary Anning has a few more showings at LIFF on November 14 and 16.