Film Review

The Dig (2021) • Netflix

An archaeologist embarks on the historically important excavation of Sutton Hoo in 1939.

At first glance, The Dig looks like yet another exercise in English nostalgia porn; complete with plucky blonde heroine striding through fields while RAF fighter planes roar overhead, a strong-willed rustic bloke offering a hint of Lady Chatterley’s gamekeeper, a well-spoken little boy in shorts saying the things the grown-ups daren’t, and the standard-issue wistful score.

Look beneath that, though, and it’s a more interesting movie than some of those trappings suggest. It’s also a beautifully shot and universally well-acted one (cinematographer Mike Eley is Ralph Fiennes true co-star), and if it’s never surprising, it also never resorts to the clichés one might expect.

Indeed, it’s unusual in not focusing on love or loss, the two mainstays of the nostalgia school of filmmaking. The key idea here is class: specifically the…