As the Curtain rises on the 59th BFI London Film Festival, its opening gala couldn’t have captured the feeling of the times any better. Released right on time to support the ongoing debate about gender inequality within the film industry, as well as in our society as a whole; ‘Suffragette’ goes back to the beginning of the 20th century paying tribute to the movement for women’s right to vote.
A passion project for director Sarah Gavron, it took ten years to complete, hindered by what many perceived as the lack of commercial viability of an all-women endeavour. The final result is a solid, finely crafted, but rather conventional drama whose screenplay, penned by Abi Morgan (Shame; The Iron Lady), combines historical research with crowd pleasing elements.
An impeccable cast is led by a subdued performance by Carey Mulligan as Maud Watts, a working mother and wife trapped between social demands of respectability forced upon her and the abuse she regularly had to endure at work. The fresh faced young star perfectly suits a vulnerable character that manages to find the strength to stop being a victim and fights for a better life.
Mulligan is in fine company with Anne Marie Duff standing out as the colleague who introduces Maud to the Suffragette cause; Ben Wishaw as her husband, who unable to cope with the shame her rebellious wife brought to his vicinity ends up kicking her out of their home; Helena Bonham Carter is the pharmacist in whose premises their meetings were held ; Brendan Gleeson, the policeman tracking down the movement, obsessed beyond reason with the fulfilment of the law and, in a brief but much touted cameo as the movement’s leader Emmeline Pankhurst, Meryl Streep appears in the film’s key scene with her clandestine call to arms speech directed to all the women in Britain, after their fifty year of pacific struggle was completely dismissed by politicians.
Conscious of its importance, ‘Suffragette’ is an obvious candidate for awards recognition; yet the enormous expectations it has raised, makes the film feel just a bit short of its undeniable ambitions. ★★★½
On its crammed press conference we learnt about the film intention to help those women still suffering around the world. An eloquent Meryl Streep named Saudi Arabia and the Vatican as the two worst culprits in the world where women still don’t a have a voice. She also stated sexism manifests itself today by preventing women from taking part in decision making processes.
Sarah Gavron talked about the difficulties her project faced until completion, “making an ensemble of women not being funny or not romantic is hard”, expressing her delight about the fact this year’s festival features 46 films directed by women. Asked about most of the male roles being sympathetic to their women’s cause, writer Abi Morgan highlighted the need to balance the different attitudes present in the suffragettes’ male counterparts. She later joked about how hard the casting for male roles was, as agents were calling back complaining about them being too small. Mulligan declared herself privileged for being part of a generation that, mostly, didn’t have to fight those battles, coming from a totally supportive family and background.
The whole team justified the short length of Streep’s part as the movements’ leader, which hasn’t stopped it from becoming a big selling point. The answer was they rather give a voice to those working class women that didn’t have one, being the worst affected by the lack of equal rights; whereas Emmeline Pankhurst’s remarkable achievement deserves its own movie.
Streep also commented on her recently found Irish roots, tracking past generations of her family to Donegal; the success of her Woman in film initiative, mainly aimed at supporting filmmaking among women over 40, even more silenced by the industry. When asked about the disappointed many felt when she distanced herself from feminism, she quoted the movie “Deeds not words” sentence, affirming she’s happy with her actions and that’s what ultimately matters.
Last but not least, the American star explained that movie going this days is driven by buzz. In the States, before someone goes to the movies they check Rotten tomatoes’ reviews aggregator and its popular Tomatometer. When looking into the website’s strict criteria to choose its contributors, she found a total of 168 women among them, versus 760 men. These enormous disproportions makes its ratings completely biased towards masculine point of views, which in turn affects the potential audience of a film. Like the rest of the industry, they should be looking for more inclusion until a half and half parity is reached.
