Suffragette - Danny's Review

This was on my list of 20 films to see this year so I was delighted to go and watch it at the local Grosvenor Cinema in Glasgow (currently I've made it to about half the list). I was not disappointed.

The film follows one branch of the suffragette movement, who represent a cross-section of the women in society. At the bottom is Carey Mulligan, who works all day as a washerwoman with an abusive boss and has a small boy and husband to look after. She can't afford to risk being outcast for her political views, but gets accidentally sucked into the movement and pays a heavy price for it. Although the film is presented as an everywoman's story to add to the historical gravitas Mulligan brushes with the movement's leader Emmeline Pankhurst, gets interviewed by mustachioed Prime Minister Lloyd George and the finale of the film is with the King at Derby Day.

Although the big picture is Votes for Women, what the women really want is equal pay and conditions, such as in Made in Dagenham. However, since the protagonists are so clearly right it doesn't matter too much. They are treated badly, and deserve better. If it wasn't for the fact that it really happened, it would be slightly hard to believe. The film does not present any clear villain for the audience to rail against, just rows of smartly dressed uncaring politicians, and local men and housewives who scold those women who stand up for their rights. The chief policeman, Brendan Gleeson, is portrayed as quite sympathetically following the law even though he knows it's wrong.

You get the sense of how helpless the women are when Carey Mulligan comes back from a week in jail and asks her husband (Ben Whishaw) if their boy has been eating well. He replies that the woman across the road did her best, as it didn't even occur to him to cook himself. "I'll make some tea" she replies.

There is a parallel to the ANC movement in South Africa, where Nelson Mandela gives up on peaceful protest and becomes and terrorist leader. Just as Mandela eloquently defends this view as necessary when all else has failed, so does Helena Bonham Carter as a veteran suffragette militant.

Overall this film gives a nice insight into the suffragette movement, and even when nothing's happening it's interesting to see London life one hundred years ago. My wife enjoyed it too, and declared it a must-see.

Director Sarah Gavron, writer Abi Morgan and stars Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep