Plaudits, too, to Monica Dolan, who makes the most of a supporting role as Basil’s wife, May, breathing years of history into a few fairly short exchanges, telling us more about their life together in a fleeting glance or a tentative touch than any amount of expository dialogue. There’s an admirable eloquence to Fiennes’s portrayal of Brown, from the studied precision of his very specific Suffolk accent to the way his gaze alters as he looks from the sod to the stars, finding equal time-travelling wonder in both worlds.

In a film defined by understatement, it’s the little details that matter. “My interest in archaeology began like yours,” Edith tells the initially sceptical Basil, “when I was scarcely old enough to hold a trowel.” So begins an unlikely friendship between two very different people, both of whom believe that “it speaks, the past”.

By contrast, Carey Mulligan’s Edith Pretty is a wealthy widow whose extensive land includes a series of imposing earth mounds, which she enlists Brown to excavate.

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