Films about archaeology often feature exotic settings, vine-clad temples (packed with lethal booby-traps), ancient curses, and occasionally wince-inducing approaches to excavation. None of these tropes apply, however, to The Dig, Netflix’s film about the Sutton Hoo ship burial and the determined team of excavators who uncovered its Anglo-Saxon remains in the late 1930s.
This is no high-octane adventure romp, but a slow, almost meditative period piece that focuses more on the people involved in the investigation and on the looming threat of the Second World War than it does on the astonishing artefacts that were recovered from Suffolk’s sandy soil. The look of the film is undeniably gorgeous, full of sweeping shots of the landscape, atmospheric lighting, and a strong visual sense of the time in which it is set. There are also some fantastic performances, particularly Ralph Fiennes’ dour and dogged portrayal of the self-taught excavator Basil Brown, while Carey Mulligan gives a quietly compelling performance as Edith Pretty, on whose land the princely burial was found. (Both actors are pictured below right.) Yet, although The Dig depicts one of the most famous archaeological discoveries in British history, this is not a documentary; it is an adaptation of a novel of the same name, itself a fictionalised account of the investigation spiced with added episodes of romance and danger that are replicated in the film. This reviewer appreciates that excavations can, by their nature, be slow processes, and that, while the moment of discovery is thrilling, it can’t fill a two-hour film. I therefore won’t pick over departures from history too pedantically – and as an interpretation of the novel, rather than of real events, the film gives a very faithful impression. Still, some of the creative decisions didn’t sit entirely comfortably.
Chief among these was Lily James’ portrayal of Peggy Piggott as a timid archaeological ingénue, winning her place on the project not because she was a skilled excavator in her own right, but as the accident-prone sidekick to her much older and more experienced husband, valued only because her slight build would pose less threat to underlying archaeology. This quailing characterisation also has its origins in the novel, but given that the real Peggy Piggott had already directed excavations and published numerous archaeological papers by the time she worked at Sutton Hoo, and that the stories of early female archaeologists are still undertold today, it was disappointing that, in revisiting this narrative, the only female member of the dig team could not have been given a better treatment. Moreover, while Peggy was indeed in her 20s in 1939, her spouse was only two years the elder. The real Sutton Hoo team was strikingly youthful, making the casting of Ben Chaplin, 51, as Stuart Piggott (29), and Ken Stott, 66, as Charles Phillips (39) somewhat jarring, particularly as rather different standards (and, I understand, a last-minute change of casting) saw Edith Pretty ‘aged down’ by two decades.
