Suffragette
Her-story in the making…
Poppycock!” snaps Mr Banks at his ditsy wife in Mary Poppins, brushing aside one of mainstream cinema’s few mentions of the women’s suffrage movements. Criminally neglected in film, literature and national curriculums for the past 100 years, the balance is redressed by Sarah Gavron’s ( Brick Lane) angry, emotional history lesson about this significant landmark in British civil rights.
Leading the way through the seamy morass of Edwardian social politics is Carey Mulligan’s washerwoman Maud Watts, a fictional working-class mum who’s drawn into the ‘criminal’ underworld via Helena Bonham Carter’s firebrand Edith Ellyn. Medieval working conditions, predatory factory owners and an increasingly stubborn government spur Maud’s shift from washing sheets to smashing windows; after the bloody events of Black Friday, she becomes a full-blown revolutionary.
Ripped from her family, beaten into prison and force-fed through a tube, Maud travels an impossibly rough road that heaps shame upon everyone who wasn’t chained to the railings outside Westminster. The character might be a bit of a cipher, but Mulligan throws herself into the role with such intensity and raw emotion that the abrupt ending feels like it abandons her too soon in favour of the headline story.
Elsewhere, a heroic Bonham Carter exudes the confidence that Mulligan slow-builds, Ben Whishaw impresses as the husband who slams the door on his rebelrousing wife, and Meryl Streep puts in an inspirational cameo as Emmeline Pankhurst. It’s a strong cast, shouldering with aplomb the (necessarily) ugly details of Abi Morgan’s ( Shame) fact-intensive script.
Directed, written and produced by women, the film holds a defiant banner up to an industry still dominated by men. There’s quality in every department. If it surface-skims to an extent, and is arguably more worthy than weighty, those are forgiveable flaws in a film whose story hasn’t been told before. THE VERDICT A long overdue depiction of a crucial chapter in British history, this will likely score a different kind of vote come awards seasons. › Certificate 12A Director Sarah Gavron Starring Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Meryl Streep, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson Screenplay Abi Morgan Distributor Pathé/Fox Running time 106 mins