Invigorated by their find, she sends for her cousin Rory Lomax ( Johnny Flynn) to assist them. Edith longs to believe something of her will remain, to remind others she was once here. As she says, “We decay and disappear.” Life takes on more meaning when you are at its end. She finds a strange kinship in their dig, because it represents, to her, the fragility of life, and how we endure. Its discovery coincides with a difficult time in Edith’s life, as she has discovered she may not live much longer. Though the general assumption is Viking, Basil suspects it may be much, much older. His eventual discovery is beyond their wildest imagination-a full ship lies beneath the earth-the burial mound of an ancient king or nobleman. Basil, too, now shares her belief it may contain historical finds. Bonded by their shared love of excavation, the two souls dig into the earth-and after a cave-in, shift their attention to the oblong mound. While the world around them prepares for a possible war against Hitler, Edith and Basil hope to peer into the past through their archeological discoveries.
They recommend Basil Brown ( Ralph Fiennes), an unschooled amateur expert with a wealth of knowledge about the past who suggests she start on one of the smaller mounds, rather than the oblong one that first drew her attention. She thinks there’s something there, awaiting discovery, and phones the British Museum to find out who could excavate them for her. A gentle exploration of life and death, “The Dig” is a meaningful glimpse into the past that leaves its audience to ponder their own future.Įnglish widow Edith Pretty ( Carey Mulligan) “has an instinct” about the strange mounds on her country estate.