SUFFRAGETTE

With the recent and necessary push towards improved equality and safety for women all over the world, it was inevitable that interest would resurge about the crucible moment of women's liberation: the suffragette movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With an all-star female cast, an award-winning female screenwriter and themes that could not be more pertinent, Sarah Gavron’s ‘Suffragette’ has taken up that mantle. But does the film break through as a piece of stirring and important entertainment, or does it end up as nothing more than an essay in film form?

‘Suffragette’ focuses on the story of Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan), a wife, mother and laundress who finds herself swept up in the suffragette movement when her horrific working conditions force her to speak up. Under the watchful eye of suffragette leader Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter), Maud becomes a foot soldier in the fight to give women the vote, a fight that costs her more than she could have imagined, but a fight not only for herself, but for those that come after her.

A film like ‘Suffragette’ seems tailor-made for the awards season, and often with period dramas the need for recognition gets in the way of great filmmaking or storytelling. Thankfully, ‘Suffragette’ doesn’t give a jolt for awards, and it’s all the better for it. That isn’t to say that the film is an extraordinary piece of cinema, but its definitely a strong one. To begin with, screenwriter Abi Morgan remembers that character is as important as theme, and makes sure that all the characters populating the film are rounded and affecting. The suffragette movement is rich material for this, especially as it gives us the potential for strong and powerful female characters. What adds to its strength is its refusal to hold back, offering a stirring and, at times, surprisingly disturbing view of the movement. For most people, their idea of the movement would be Glynis Johns and her show-stopping number in ‘Mary Poppins’. What Gavron and Morgan offer though is a movement of tremendous violence. The suffragettes, fighting a fight they may not but absolutely must win, resort to necessary anarchy and destruction to make their point, and are met with violence and mistreatment. It’s a shock to the system how graphic and upsetting this material is in the film, but it feels vitally important to see just how hard women were forced to fight to stand up for their innate human rights, and to see the conditions that finally forced them.