SUFFRAGETTE – The Review

By Cate Marquis

In the years just before World War I at the start of the 20th century, British women had been campaigning peacefully for the right to vote for about 50 years, to no avail. When aristocrat Emmeline Pankhurst, along with her daughters, joined this struggle and formed the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), all that changed. The label “suffragettes” originated as an insult but the WSPU embraced the term as they took to the streets in violent protest to force government to give women the vote.

This nearly-forgotten struggle is the subject of SUFFRAGETTE. The bold, emotionally-raw and worthy drama focuses more narrowly on a particular moment in that movement for women’s suffrage in Britain. While Emmeline Pankhurst, played by Meryl Streep, is a character in this story, the real focus of SUFFRAGETTE is on some of her followers, “foot soldiers” in this fight – Maud (Carey Mulligan), a poor uneducated mother working in a factory laundry, Edith (Helena Bonham-Carter), a college-educated pharmacist/physician, and Maud’s radical co-worker Violet (Anne-Marie Duff). Ben Whishaw plays Maud’s husband Sonny and Brendon Gleeson plays Inspector Arthur Steed, tasked with stopping the suffragettes’ violent attacks.

“Suffrage” is such an odd word, sounding like suffering when it actually means the right to vote. There was plenty of suffering involved in this struggle, especially by the poor women who lacked the resources and connections that Pankhurst had. Inspired by real events, this story takes place in a pivotal historical moment, when the fight for women’s rights coincided in Britain with challenges to class divisions, the early labor movement and opposition to the coming war, the ultimate war of choice that transformed both Europe and warfare.

Directed by Sarah Gavron, written by Abi Morgan, and led by a top-notch female cast, SUFFRAGETTE is woman-power in action as well as being a gripping historical drama. Not surprisingly, the film has a decided pro-women’s rights slant. The very personal viewpoint from which it is told might cause the film to resonate more with women than men. While Maud, Edith and Violet are fictional, they are drawn from real people and real events are depicted in the film. The film also illustrates the class divide of the era, something Pankhurst’s organization crossed.

The acting is superb, particularly Mulligan as the central character, but all the cast are good. Mulligan gives a moving, touching performance as a woman gradually drawn into the fight by circumstances of her life. In her few scenes, Streep captures the energetic and larger-than-life impression Pankhurst must have given her followers. Bonham-Carter gives a strong performance, damping down her quirky-character style to play more restrained character as brainy Edith.

The attention to period detail adds realism, the photography is lavish and Gavron’s firm direction paired with Morgan’s human-focused script makes this a moving, involving drama.

If this worthy film has a flaw, it is that the focus is too narrow, and that it does not give a big enough picture of the fight for voting rights for women, or the political context in which it took place as war loomed and workers were organizing for rights. Instead, it portrays the hardships and  restrictions confronting ordinary women, and the personal costs they faced for their activism. At the time, women were expected to stay home and care for children but, for poor women, this was rarely an option. Maud works along side her husband (Ben Whishaw), raising their son George (Adam Michael Dodd) in a cramped apartment. The conditions in the factory are appalling, hours are long, and girls as young as nine work under bullying boss Mr. Taylor (Geoff Bell). Edith is better educated than her supportive husband but she can only treat her patients under his authority as the male owner of a family pharmacy.

As the film shows, these women organized protest marches, petitioned Parliament, and even bombed mailboxes and broke shop windows. Many were jailed repeatedly, including Pankhurst, and the government responded to hunger strikes with brutal force-feeding. Emily Wilding Davison (Natalie Press) was a real person, as was the climatic event shown near the film’s end, and its pivotal role in the women’s votes movement.

The suffragettes’ actions contrasted with how their formal Edwardian dress, particularly the fashionable upper classes, appear to our modern eyes. By focusing on the more informally dressed working class women, it is easier to connect emotionally with the characters. One of the film’s strengths is its willingness to show men who supported this cause as well as those who opposed it. However, one of the film’s most startling moments comes at the very end, as a list of the dates when women won the vote in various country is a shocking reminder of how much remains to be done.

The story has links to the present, as women are still fighting for equal pay nearly a century later, a topic particularly being talked about in the film industry now. SUFFRAGETTE is a moving historical drama told from a human level, a worthy film that hopefully will prompt interest in this overlooked history, and one likely to garner some Oscar nods come awards season.

OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS

SUFFRAGETTE is playing in theaters now