In the 1840s, acclaimed self-taught paleontologist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) works alone on the wild and brutal Southern English coastline of Lyme Regis. The days of her famed discoveries behind her, she now hunts for common fossils to sell to rich tourists to support herself and her ailing widowed mother. When one such tourist, Roderick Murchison, arrives in Lyme on the first leg of a European tour, he enlists Mary to care for his young wife, Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan), who is recuperating from a personal tragedy. Mary, whose life is constantly on the edge of poverty, can’t afford to decline the work however the two women are certainly from utterly different worlds.
Despite the chasm between their social spheres and personalities, Mary and Charlotte discover they can each offer what the other has been searching for: the realization that they are not alone. It is the beginning of a passionate and all-consuming love affair that will defy all social bounds and alter the course of both lives irrevocably.

This film contains scenes of graphic sexuality.

Edmonton Premiere!