As Sufragistas

It's 1912. Peaceful demonstrations have achieved little for suffrage in Britain. Suffragettes are resorting to vandalism. Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) is a young mother working in a laundry for most of her life. She suffered under her lascivious boss Mr. Taylor. Co-worker Violet Miller recruits her into the movement. After testifying to Minister Lloyd George, the government still refuses to give the vote. Maud is beaten and arrested along with MP wife Alice Haughton (Romola Garai), Violet and Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter). Police inspector Steed (Brendan Gleeson) leads the effort to suppress the rebels. Suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep) urges the women to fight. After another arrest, Maud is thrown out by her husband Sonny Watts (Ben Whishaw) and by law, loses her rights to her own son.

One would expect an uplifting feel-good inspirational movie from the subject matter. The fact is that this is a dour, depressed telling of the struggle that is not simply marching and sit-ins. The violence is brutal but it's the overwhelming oppression that is even more brutal. The downtrodden acting by Carey Mulligan is superb. It is a movie of suffering and women with no choice but to rebel.

It can be risky critiquing a film homage to heroines of feminism, especially one with a star cast that includes Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Ben Whishaw and a Meryl Streep cameo. Respect for the cause, however, does not guarantee respect for the film, and this one chooses a very limited lens with which to view this episode of history. It does have high production values, narrative authenticity and sensitivity for the feminist struggle in early 20th century Britain. But it gets lost in balancing the broader sweep of history that shapes gender relations and the impact of particular individuals.

The story line is uni-linear, the atmosphere dark and claustrophobic, and much of the acting is melodramatic, with long close-ups of Mulligan's finely nuanced expressions recording her progress from an abused laundry worker to what today would be called a radicalised political terrorist. The historical lens is so myopic that you could walk away believing the vote was won by a few protesting women, the bombing of some public letterboxes and a suffragette who threw herself under the King's horse. No more struggle…job done! Of course, that is not true and the struggle continues.

Despite these limitations, it's a finely crafted British film. The fictional heroine Maude Watts is an avatar for the British working class women who risked everything, including their lives, in fighting for the vote. Men of all classes are the demons of this tale, and one of its chilling insights is how the most dangerous enemies of suffragettes were husbands. Patriarchal governments left it to ordinary menfolk to sort out their unruly women in an era where wives were legally subordinate to husbands. Maude's contempt for her treatment at work and home propels her into the swirling orbit of violent protest where "war is the only language men listen to". Evicted by her husband for shaming him, she is left with nothing; by law, even her son was her husband's property. During the struggles, over one thousand British women were imprisoned and treated shamefully, a fact only acknowledged in the film's closing credits. Admittedly, historical judgement is difficult to translate into cinematic language, but many films have done it better. If you are interested in the history of feminist struggle from the viewpoint of the small people who made up the bigger story you will like this film.

Biographical movies are always fascinating. If it is not something worthy, the movie would have not taken up the shape. It was a very good movie, and a very important historical subject. It has been 100 years since and now the world we live-in is much different and better. I think after thousands of years, now the women got their freedom.

I thought I knew this story very well, but it was 'Made in Dagenham' which is quite similar to this which is also based on the real. Both the stories take place 50 years apart, but this one was the beginning of a new era for women, not without sacrifices and sufferings.

Great actors, great actings, awesome storytelling, cinematography at its best, direction was amazing and the music was so pleasant, but the method of dealing was a bit gruesome, and sometimes brutal. I thought the terrorism is a new word, but this movie gives a different perspective and meaning to that.

You would definitely love this film if you respect women. All women cast movie, including the director, but for everyone. It might have begun in the UK, but the entire planet saw a drastic change and still taking place in some places. I don't see any reason why I should not recommend it to you.

8/10

This story of how in 1912 and 1913 British women fought for the right to vote is immensely worthy, technically accomplished and well-acted but, as cinema, it somehow fails to engage. At the conclusion of the movie, we are reminded that it was not until 1928 that full women's suffrage was achieved in the UK and even today women in a country like Saudi Arabia do not have the vote. The very act of creating this film is a contemporary testimony to female equality since, as well as all the lead acting roles, women fill the positions of writer (Abi Morgan) and director (Sarah Gavron) as well as producers (six out of the nine). The female domination of "Suffragette" serves to underline how few films ate directed and written by women and how underpaid female actors are compared to their male counterparts. The struggle for equality is not over.

Although the leadership of the suffragette movement came from middle-class women, Morgan has chosen to tell the story through the eyes of a working class laundry worker Maud Watts, wonderfully portrayed by Carey Mulligan - whom I have admired since her performance in "An Education" (2009) - who is brought into the movement by fellow worker Violet (Anne-Marie Duff). Other suffragettes are played by Helena Bonham- Carter (actually a descendant of a Prime Minister who opposed votes for women), Romola Garai (whose career does not seem to have taken off as much as she deserves), and - in an all too tiny cameo - Meryle Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst.

This film is a fictionalized story of a woman caught up in the suffrage movement in Britain in the early 20th century. Carry Mulligan plays Maud Watts...a woman who slowly comes into the movement and the sacrifices she personally made as a result.

I noticed that a few of the reviews on IMDb hated the film and by the way they worded the reviews, they seemed upset that women earned the right to vote or thought women never had fight to achieve this!! Strange...very strange. Women DID have to fight and fight hard to earn their rights and the film does a very nice job of it. Why anyone would give the film a 1 or see it as some lie is just baffling...and ignorant of British history. The fictionalized life of Carry Mulligan's is essentially true of many women and the horrific event concerning Emily Davison DID occur in 1913....so why hate that the film dramatizes this?

Overall, the film is extremely compelling and very emotional to watch. Seeing women abused and mistreated is tough....and should grab your heart. Well acted and worth seeing. My only complaint is ts are that the film, at times, is a bit sterile...which is odd considering the events. And, it uses a modern device I hate--the roving camera (hold that camera still #@&@#%^...it's NOT arsty to have bad camera work--particularly on closeups). Still, well worth seeing-- particularly for teens to realize how bad things were and how far we've come.