The film is adapted from the popular novel by John Preston, it's a brilliantly realised account of the most famous archaeological dig in Britain in modern time - the discovery of the Anglo-Saxon burial ship at Sutton Hoo, known as "Britain's Tutankhamun". Set against the intense backdrop of a Britain on the eve of war, the story channels class tensions, love and loss through the eyes of those affected by the dig and its treasures, including Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan) the widowed landowner of the state the burial mounds are on and Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) the amateur archaeologist she hires to excavate their secrets.
