We Want Sex

Greetings again from the darkness. The first thing that strikes you about this movie is that it looks and feels like ancient history. In fact, it is based on the real life happenings in 1968 - only about 40 years ago. Sally Hawkins (so wonderful in Happy-Go-Lucky) portrays Rita O'Grady, the Ford sewing machinist who reluctantly takes on the leadership role in the battle for equal pay for women.

Director Nigel Cole tells this story minus the heavy-handedness of the times. In fact, it's a very entertaining tale of right vs wrong - because "that's how we have always done it". He uses actual archival footage of Ford plants, cars and workers, as well as general footage of England circa 1968. These cuts give the film a feel for the times and prevent any over-analysis of wardrobe and sets in the movie. Mr. Cole clearly has an understanding of women based on this film and his previous work in "Calendar Girls".

The cross-fire between the unions, Ford, the workers and the government really bang home the notion of just how ridiculous this entire argument was (and is). Rita O'Grady was so effective because she cut through the muck and made it what it really is ... a simple case of right vs. wrong. Rights vs. privilege. This was never more apparent than in her meeting with Secretary of State Barbara Castle (Miranda Richardson). Madam Secretary is attempting to negotiate a settlement that will keep Ford happy, but quickly realizes ... with help from O'Grady ... that there is really only one correct course of action.

Supporting work is excellent from Bob Hoskins, Ms. Richardson, Daniel Mayes (as O'Grady's husband), Rupert Graves and Rosamund Pike (husband and wife on different teams) and the rest of the cast of women, as well as the Ford executives and Union leaders. The film mostly rests on the shoulders of Sally Hawkins, who breezes through with a natural energy that just makes you want to pull for her. She was terrific in Happy-Go-Lucky, and even better here.

The film stops short of detailing the massive battle that escalated the following year between Secretary Castle and the Labor Unions. Most attribute these fights to the downfall of the Labour Party in 1970. However, Ms. Castle's contributions are very clear in these all important topics and led directly to England's Equal Pay laws of 1970, which in turn paved the way for most other countries to follow.

This is a very uplifting film and shows the bravery and determination required of those who change the course of history. Whenever you hear talk regarding the lack of strong female movie roles, this film is exhibit number one that fact can be even stronger than fiction!

Made in Dagenham has brilliantly broken the mould. It combines the clear, explicit and nuanced politics of the best of Ken Loach with the heart-grabbing attractions of any mainstream popular film you care to name. The brilliant scene where Sally Hawkin's modest and unpractised union rep spells out why the job she does is skilled is a metaphor for the whole movie. Politics isn't hard to understand – it's our lives, stupid! I cannot think of a previous British film with a mainstream aesthetic that has had the guts before to put the ordinary workers' point of view so wholeheartedly at its centre. But this is no simplistic idealised narrative. Going on strike, as the women find, makes you very unpopular, not least with the very people you'd thought would support you – the Union leadership and your fellow (male) workers. Nothing is a cinch, nothing too easily won and Sally Hawkins brilliantly portrays the thorny predicament of the figurehead of the struggle beginning to doubt her own single-mindedness and how much it's costing not just her family but the entire town (and possibly the UK's) working community. Made in Dagenham shows a true story in a truthful, thoroughly engaging way. There is not one bum note in any of the performances – from Kenneth Cranham's sleazily compromised Union official, to Rosamund Pike's surprisingly moving posh wife, to Jamie Winstone's wannabe model – everybody has a committed credibility without ever being worthy or cloying and Sally Hawkins (with a startling look of the young Rita Tushingham) plays a richly layered blinder in the central role. Huge hats off to the writer Billy Ivory who has written a bright, funny, completely unpatronising and clever script. And a big, big thank you to producers Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen for the guts to get right inside the truth of this big, big story that started in a little place.

After a summer of endless animations and shlock-horror here - at last! - is a film with real heart.

Sally Hawkins is a revelation as Rita who becomes the striking machinists' spokeswoman; her speeches to co-workers, union chiefs, management and the press all start out tremulous and gain in confidence as she hits her stride. Geraldine James who usually plays upper-class ladies (I'm still trying to forgive and forget her breast-feeding David Walliams in Little Britain!) here plays a kind of 'upper-working-class' woman with a husband still shell-shocked from WW2. John Sessions does a Spitting Image turn as Harold Wilson, and Miranda Richardson morphs her Blackadder Elizabeth I into a fiery Barbara Castle (dressed by C&A).

In my Gap Year (date withheld) I worked in a Sussex factory that had a sewing-room. The movie gets the atmosphere exactly right but I don't think working women were quite as free with the f-word back then as they are in this script. The end credits run against pictures of the original Dagenham strikers who all look like clones of Corrie's Ena Sharples and Florrie Linley. Some of the film machinists are more Carnaby Street than Coronation Street, but that's OK. These girls make you laugh, they occasionally bring a lump to your throat, but most of all they make you want to cheer.

A small slice of 1960s history, this film packs a big punch. Do not miss it.

The movie gets to convey the atmosphere of those months in 1968, where 187 women joined together and went on a strike to ask for equal salaries to men, and better conditions of work. We as viewers really feel the cohesion, the solidarity, as well as the tensions of this group. Never pedantic, or too dramatically committed, the movie gets to make the public, mainly the female one, reflect upon the hard struggle women had to face before getting some basic rights, when still actual and necessary is the reflection about today's condition of female workers, when some kind of discrimination is still to be faced. However, the movie proceeds with a soft and entertaining pace, maybe at some points too entertaining, the sparkling character of Rita O'Grady herself was invented in order to make the story more cinematographically involving. No doubt however the cast makes a difference, the actresses offer single heart-felt interpretations, in the same way as the choral shots show intensity and strong emotion.

Made in Dagenham hit the screen and shows that a not-exceedingly-mega- budget film can be the best of the year.

The factually based story of how the Dagenham women brought Ford to a standstill makes for surprising film material.But it works .The film is authentic to the late 60s down to the tea cups and kitchen cabinets , the clothes and make up.

Miranda Richardson as Barbara Castle steals the film,Bob Hoskins,Geraldine James are all excellent in their roles.

Stay in for the credits though, that part of it had me reaching for the tissues .

This is a film which will have you shaking with anger one minute and crying the next.Highly recommended.