Movie Review: 'Suffragette'
By Bill Wine
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- As Suffragette makes abundantly clear, the fight for women's suffrage was no polite disagreement, but a painful, hard-won right that we now take very much for granted.
The bracing drama is a tribute to brave women living in patriarchal societies who spoke out about gender inequality and imbalance at great risk and sacrifice for the benefit of women of future generations.
A British period piece, Suffragette focuses on one particular fictionalized member of the women's suffrage movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, letting her stand in for the many women who suffered apathy, disapproval, abuse , and worse on a daily basis as a response to and result of their involvement as activists.
In London in 1912, Maud Watts, played by Carey Mulligan, is functioning in a supervisory capacity at the local laundry, where she has worked since childhood.
She knows that her sexually predatory boss (Geoff Bell) severely underpays his female employees, but Maud lives a modest but happy life with her co-worker husband (Ben Wishaw) and her young son (Adam Michael Dodd).
However, after co-worker Violet (Anne-Marie Duff) breaks her share of shop windows in protest of the injustice of the dreadful working conditions for women, Maud pledges – despite her embarrassed husband's protestations – to hear Violet give testimony in the House of Parliament.
Then, when Violet is cruelly beaten before her scheduled appearance, Maud is engaged to take her place.
When the Conciliation Bill, as the legislation is called, fails to pass, women protest in the streets, commit crimes against property, and are attacked violently by the police.
Later, after working-class Maud attends meetings arranged by the local pharmacist's wife (Helena Bonham Carter), she is arrested for civil disobedience as part of the movement led by upper-class activist Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep), whose inspirational proclamation is "I'd rather be a rebel than a slave," as a police inspector (Brendan Gleeson) works to stifle the protests.
Director Sarah Gavron, in only her second feature ( Brick Lane), works from a script by Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady, Shame) that is unabashedly vociferous about its mission, and doesn't shy away from being preachy or shocking, leaving the vivid impression that there hasn't been near enough universal progress on this important issue – and that there was, and is, a lot more than just the vote that was, and is, at stake.
Mulligan, through whose eyes we see everything, is especially fine as the awakened, evolving, resolute Maud – a second Oscar nomination could be coming her way -- and the supporting ensemble is at least serviceable. As for Streep, crucial as her character is to the narrative, this is not a Meryl Streep movie – hers is really just a brief cameo.
It's a shame that the climactic portion of the film isn't as strong as the leadup to it, during which the script's straight-ahead dedication to its central agenda is the source of its power and impact, but this is nonetheless an admirable history lesson and corrective.
So we'll protest 3 stars out of 4 for the absorbing reminder drama, Suffragette, a film of quality about inequality.