Darkmatters Review: Suffragette

Suffragette (12a)

Dir. Sarah Gavron

Reviewed by Matt Adcock (@Cleric20)

“I would rather be a rebel than a slave”

Women eh? Can’t live with ‘em, can’t trust them to vote or understand the complex workings of parliament apparently… Wait, this isn’t early 20th century Britain (thank goodness), here we have a brutally frank, emotionally charged and brilliantly female empowering drama set around the struggles of the suffragette women’s movement in London c1912.

"orderly protest"

There is much to enjoy in this cinematic trip detailing the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, who include the initially reluctant activist Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan), the bold chemist Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter) and overall suffragette mastermind Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep).

As a male viewer, I was shamed and shocked at the awful conditions inflicted on women who in those dark times. This is a film that blows the doors off the corrupt power grab of the men who ran everything and held all the control. From the sexual abuse of the under-age female workers by their bosses, through to the casual and unaccountable police violence against women – Director Sarah ‘Brick Lane’ Gavron captures the heart-breaking widespread acceptance by the general populace that ‘its just this way, and its not going to change’. That is until sufficient women stood up to the male dominated authorities by taking the law into their own hands, and managed to change the world.

"Invading personal space"

The oppressed working women who had tried peaceful protest and official representation only to achieve nothing became radicalized, employing violence and demonstrating the will to lose everything in their seemingly impossible fight for equality. Maud acts the emotional core of the film and Mulligan is just superb in the lead role. Her inspirational struggle which see her lose her job, home and family is hard to watch at points but for viewers (of either sex) her fight for dignity is more gripping than many machine tooled cinematic thrillers.

"if this is your fist night, you have to fight"

Suffragette expertly captures the abject horror of the women’s situation and has a great cinematic sweep in bringing the dirty cobbled streets of the Capital to life. The men of the film surprisingly do not come out well – Ben Whishaw is good as the wimpish Sonny, a man trapped between his love for his wife (Mulligan) and the consequences of becoming a social pariah if he supports her in any way. But award for biggest scumbag is a toss up between vile, lecherous boss Norman Taylor (Geoff Bell) and Inspector Steed (Brendan Gleeson) – the copper tasked with taking the suffragettes down.

Out of a potential 5 you have to go with a Darkmatters:

öööö

(4 - Essential viewing!!)

Awesomeness öööö – Worthy tribute to those who risked everything

Laughs öö – a few fun moments but generally grim

Horror ööö –  harrowing situations

Spiritual Enlightenment ööö - equality is a right!