Suffragette (2015)
Certified: 12A
Duration: 106 minutes
Directed by: Sarah Gavron
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Meryl Streep, Natalie Press, Anne-Marie Duff, Romola Garai, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw, Samuel West, Adrian Schiller
KRS Releasing Ltd

Come the awards season I will be very surprised to see Carey Mulligan leave empty-handed after her passionate and forceful role in Suffragette. On viewing this movie, one wonders how this story about the women who united and forced the government’s hand to give women the right to vote was never brought to the screen until now.

Suffragette delivers a story and characters that make us aware of how drastically things have changed and of how we take such a thing as the equal right to vote for granted.

Carey Mulligan is Maud Watts (a fictional character), who works at a laundry. She is also a housewife living in a time when women do not have the right to vote. She ends up joining the suffragette movement which has been outlawed.

Here, she will work alongside the likes of Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter) and Emily Davison (Natalie Press), all real-life characters. Inevitably enough, this leads to a head-on collision with her husband Sonny (Ben Whishaw) and the rest of her family.

Suffragette is a movie that deservedly gives a showcase and strong platform to its female cast as they are given rich characters to develop and bring to the screen.

This kind of movie usually elicits the kind of over-the-top acting that is show-stopping but ultimately hollow and theatrical.

Surprisingly enough, out of all the cast in the movie it is Meryl Streep who comes out the weakest, as although she is being touted as a main player, her role is that of a supporting actress.

Carey Mulligan’s performance is exactly the opposite. The synchronicity between her and Sarah Gavron’s direction is flawless and impeccable. Mulligan delivers a non-histrionic performance, a performance that builds up slowly to register her smooth and subtle character development on screen.

With her inhabiting this fictional character we are given the chance to be the audience to the activities and events that made up the suffragette movement, and to partake in the troubles that occurred.

Adequate support is provided by Helena Bonham Carter as Anne-Marie Duff and Romola Garai. By contrast, Meryl Streep, who plays the suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, has a much smaller part, and while she delivers it with her usual imprint she is not the focus of the movie.

Sarah Gavron fills the movie with all the right ingredients, touches and historical facts that give it weight and authenticity. Shot exquisitely and in a beautiful manner, the film has a look to it that evinces the right tones and palettes of what in our mind London of the time should look like.

The result is a movie that feels very much in touch and relevant both as a historical piece and as a learning and eye-opening piece for today.

Suffragette is not a feminist movie, and it would be wrong to label it so. This is a movie about a battle to gain equal rights, and the fact that in this day and age there are still difficulties to accept this equality can be very worrying indeed.

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