Before watching this film, I had absolutely no idea who Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes), Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan), or even Peggy Piggott (Lily James) were and what they did. As an engineer and a science enthusiast myself, I rarely struggle to find some sort of enjoyment in movies based on true stories about scientific discoveries, technological...

The Dig reminded me of another movie about archaeology and which was not only also based on a true story but also involved a woman’s contribution to that scientific field. That other movie was Ammonite, about a woman archaeologist in a time when women were more than rare in that field of endeavor. Unlike that character, however, Edith Pretty...