'The Dig' - Strange to spend so much money and talent on such a messed-up story line

 Visually ‘The Dig’ is beautiful, the acting out of a master class - but the story line is a mess. 

 The story was in the set up. It was the village under-dog facing an alliance of the county class and the museum elite.

 There was so much more the screenplay could have made of this. We could have had the archaeologist’s ‘Karate Kid’ or ‘Rocky’ or ‘Invictus’ or ‘Forest Gump’. If only at the planning stage someone had come along and said: 'Keep to the story of the hero, Bruce Brown the excavator with no formal education, quietly overcoming the establishment. Don’t go down relationship rabbit trails.'

 But down the rabbit trails we went. Settling in for an underdog movie, suddenly you are wondering if this is a rich woman falling in love with poor man story, a ‘Lady Chatterley's Lover’ moved to Suffolk. That distraction, thankfully, peters out. It was completely unbelievable. We get back to the under-dog versus the establishment, but not for long. About an hour into the film, when things should be getting really tense for Brown, a romantic foursome comes crashing onto the screen. Their characters are stereo types, their unrelated story boringly predictable. Everyone has worked out exactly what is going to happen after the first few minutes of their appearing. Newly married archaeologist Stuart Piggot is going to go off with a bloke and his rejected wife is going to go off with the good-looking cousin of the rich widow who owns Sutton Hoo. They are irritating intruders, pushing our hero to the side-lines. So much so that the main story just fizzles out. There is no climatic breakthrough, no Apollo 13 bursting through the skies, no Schindler stumbling with emotion as he says farewell to the Jews he has saved, no standing ovation for John Nash. And yet you feel there could have been, if only the writer had stayed with the main story.

 It leaves one wondering what it is that persuades so much talent and so much money to invest in a film with such an obvious crack in its story line. Here is the fear. That when considering a new film the studio pulls out a check list. Will there be visual beauty? Will there be famous actors? Will there be a historic feel, if possible connected to the Second World War? Will there be romance? And, of course, will there be a gay theme? ‘The Dig’ ticked all these boxes.

 But the investors forgot that if you don’t keep everything working together for the main story line, unless you are a Terrence Malik or a Christopher Nolan, a film is doomed. Soon ‘The Dig’ will disappear, and if it is unearthed a hundred years from now, it won’t be treated as a treasure. Its only use will be as an artefact to teach students how a sub-plot can ruin a film.