The Dig

What Jesse said:

Mike’s verdict:

The Dig is not exciting. It’s not suspenseful or mysterious; there are no larger than life personalities and the plot is very straightforward. But it is quietly, unexpectedly, dramatic. The film leans into the understated performances of Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes, allowing it to firmly capture and hold attention – without actually needing to demand anything.

The story is told with a plain, but delicate, simplicity that carries the audience gently along with characters who – despite being set nearly a century ago in what might as well be a another universe – are entirely relatable today. There is a tender grip that you don’t notice until then end when it gracefully lets you go.  Indeed, it was only during the epilogue that I realized I had spent nearly two hours with a shallow anxiety, waiting for the disaster that was surely going to disrupt the story I was enjoying.

But there is no disaster.

There is just life, seen from the perspective of two people who have been brought together by a shared passion for how the past reaches into their present.

There are, of course, trials and frustrations – but they are reasonable. Problems are only as big as they need to be – nothing is embellished for the sake of entertainment. Aside from a strangely tangential love triangle that briefly distracts somewhat from the real narrative, the film does very well to avoid introducing tensions where they are unnecessary.

Mulligan and Fiennes have a solid chemistry that is allowed to fill the scenes they share but it is never exploited. Their connection exists, it’s overwhelming, and it’s unacknowledged.

And in the end you find out that the story is a dramatic telling of actual history – the past reaching into our present.

Jesse really under-sold this one.

9.5/10