GLENN BURGESS suggests that, despite his record in Spain, Orwell’s enduring commitment to socialist revolution underpins his late novels
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Ammonite
MARIA DUARTE is intrigued by the life of Mary Anning, a palaeontologist and fossil collector, whose discoveries were either overlooked or appropriated by her male peers
CHRISTOPHER POLLARD explains how and why neoliberalism adopted the racist agenda common to the populist right of today
SYLVIA HIKINS recommends a sweeping survey of the world's biggest desert and the people who live there
GUILLERMO THOMAS is persuaded by a scathing critique of the Church of England and its embeddedness in imperialism
MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Materialists, Unmoored, Together, and Bambi: A Tale of Life in The Woods
TONY BURKE revels in the publication of previously unreleased tracks by the great US folksinger
GORDON PARSONS endures heavy rock punctuated by Shakespeare, and a delighted audience
Ammonite (15)
Directed by Francis Lee
★★★
AFTER his critically acclaimed and frankly stunning debut feature God’s Own Country, film-maker Francis Lee has turned his sights to one of the unsung heroes of British palaeontology and fossil discovery: Mary Anning.
Rather than a straight biopic, this is an imagined snapshot of Anning’s life in 1840s Lyme Regis and the intense relationship that developed between her and Charlotte Murchison (Saoirase Ronan), a young married woman sent to convalesce by the sea.
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