The Dig – 5

It must be hard to make a dramatically interesting movie about archaeology, based on the evidence of The Dig. To keep things moving, the writers threw in an unrelated plane crash, a love affair between the mousy bride of a gay archaeologist and the proprietor’s dashing cousin, a buffoonish museum curator and the rapidly approaching death of Mrs. Pretty (although the end credits reveal it didn’t occur for six more years). There wasn’t a scene or line of dialogue that didn’t cause a shake of the head. The attempted grand themes–man’s connection to the past, his quest for the stars, his place in the moment–came across as trivia. On the plus side, there was nothing offensive, and Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes are pleasant company.