MANILA, PHILIPPINES — In the days leading up to the Second World War, Edith Pretty wanted the large burial mounds on her estate in Suffolk dug up. Dealing with health issues, Pretty hired local excavator Basil Brown to preside over the dig. What they found was beyond anything they could imagine and would prove to be one of the great archeological finds of the 20th century.
Based off the book of the same name by John Preston, The Dig is directed by Simon Stone and stars Carey Mulligan as Edith Pretty with Ralph Fiennes as Basil Brown. It tells the story of the 1939 excavation conducted at Sutton Hoo near Woodbridge and the unlikely group of individuals that came together to uncover a staggering piece of history.
Although the film has been noted for some historical inaccuracies, that definitely does not take away from the overall enjoyment of the piece. Mulligan and Fiennes have proven time and again to be exceptional in their field and Fiennes, with his receding hairline, seems to have been liberated from traditional leading man roles since he embraced that. The real life Pretty and Brown were supposedly closer in age to one another and that probably would have been reflected had original choice Nicole Kidman stayed with the project.
Still, seeing Mulligan portray Pretty with her quiet dignity and steadfastness despite the pressure being put on her by Charles Phillips (Ken Stott) of the British Museum and James Reid Moir (Paul Ready) of the Ipswich Museum was a powerful image. As a widowed mother of a young son, her awareness that her health was deteriorating yet her insistence on finishing the excavation proved to be sources of strength for Brown and the team.
The character of Pretty’s cousin Rory Lomax (Johnny Flynn) is fictional and basically used to introduce a romantic story for Peggy Piggott (Lily James) which the film could actually do without. The real Peggy Piggott was supposedly a more qualified and experienced archeologist than was portrayed in the movie, so her characterization here was used largely to serve as a counterbalance of the chauvinist men like Phillips and her husband Stuart Piggott (Ben Chaplin).
Even as Britain was about to be dragged into World War II, the tensions of seeing war planes flying overhead and Rory being drafted to serve as an airman made digging up these artefacts as fast as possible even more necessary. Even with those things beyond their control, as was the case with the rainy English weather, Brown and the archeologists who eventually joined him were able to discover this ancient site but even the presentation of the discoveries would have to wait until the war concluded. By then, however, Edith Pretty had passed away due to the illnesses that had limited her activity as seen in the film.
Despite all of these, the star of The Dig remains its core story that did in fact happen in 1939. Edith Pretty did commission Basil Brown to dig these mounds and discover a burial site for an Anglo-Saxon ship from the 6th to 7th centuries. Although there were efforts to diminish their importance in its discovery, that has since been corrected and proper acknowledgement has since been restored.
In just his second turn in the director’s chair, Stone was able to convey the story of The Dig as well as the relationships among the people involved with it. These included Edith and her son Robert (Archie Barnes), Robert and Basil Brown, and Basil and his wife May (Monica Dolan), who knows how important this project was for her husband’s self-esteem.
The aforementioned pressure that Phillips, Reid Moir, and others may have placed on Pretty notwithstanding, her insistence on fulfilling the initial agreement with Brown and thus giving him the credit he deserved for the significance of their find seems almost unheard of for a woman from that age, yet The Dig succeeds in relaying that message.
