Suffragette dares to strip its female characters down and reveal their imperfect, powerful humanity.
When the media talks about the women’s rights movement of the early 20th century, it rarely lingers on the horrors the suffragettes subjected themselves to in the name of a greater good.
The long and brutal fight to win women the right to vote has been smoothed out over the years, glossed over in pop culture and school textbooks as though it was a gradual, relatively peaceful process. “The stories were written out of history,” said director Sarah Gavron during Wednesday’s press conference, with writer Abi Morgan adding, “so many stories have been buried.”
This movie aims to bring some of those buried stories to life, putting a face on the struggle and forcing us to experience the horrors of female oppression from the perspective of the unsung heroes of the war for equality: The working class foot-soldiers who sacrificed everything in the hope that their daughters’ lives would be just a little bit better than their own.
Suffragette tells the raw, unfiltered and heart-wrenching story of the fictional Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan), a young wife and mother who has no intention of getting involved with the women’s rights cause. “I’m not a suffragette,” she states several times in the movie. And she’s not. She’s a woman who keeps her head down and suffers the injustices of the world in silence.
Maud is terrified of rocking the boat, and joins the movement only grudgingly. When she begins to fight, she isn’t fighting a righteous cause, she’s fighting for herself — and that’s what makes her story so compelling. Mulligan’s performance as the downtrodden, broken woman who surprises herself with her newfound passion for a cause bigger than herself is nothing short of Oscar-worthy.
Helena Bonham Carter delivers one of her most sympathetic and heart-wrenching performances to date, playing the quiet, but unashamedly powerful Edith Ellyn. Romola Garai shines as the powerless wife of a minister, and Natalie Press takes a memorable turn as Emily Davison, one of the most recognizable names in the history of the suffragettes. But Anne-Marie Duff emerges as the real scene-stealer of Suffragette, haunting and fierce in her defiance, drawing in the audience to her cause just as she does Maud.
What makes the actresses’ performances all the more striking is the fact that they were all free of make-up — or at least free of the ethereal glamour usually masking Hollywood actresses’ humanity — appearing just as real as you or I as the characters worked factory jobs, served prison time, and sported nasty bruises. In a time where Hollywood is under scrutiny for encouraging unrealistic beauty standards, Suffragette manages to change the conversation, not just by showing that women can be beautiful without makeup (duh) but that their beauty — and by beauty, I mean their inner strength and presence — comes from passion, not from products.
The women in the film were at their most beautiful when there was fire burning in their eyes, and when you could feel pride emanating from every pore of their being. Even beaten down, physically and mentally, that fire might still shine, and it was intoxicating.
And it is so appropriate that a movie about the ugly, inglorious women’s rights movement of the 1910s should be so bold and unfiltered in its portrayal of female strength and dignity.
The cultural and political significance of ‘Suffragette’
At the press conference promoting the film, the cast acknowledged the absurdity of the fact that it has taken this long to finally tell the suffragettes’ story.
It’s common knowledge that a movie with a female ensemble cast is hard to sell in Hollywood — especially if it’s “neither funny nor romantic,” as screenwriter Abi Morgan pointed out. And even when women’s stories are told, too often their narratives are packaged in a way that complies with traditional gender roles.
What made Suffragette so important, not just as a historical film but as a commentary on gender politics, was its complete lack of subtlety, not in terms of its storylines or characters, which were plenty nuanced and complex, but in terms of its portrayal of women as valid members of the human race.
Both the women and the men in the movie (Brendan Gleeson and Ben Whishaw both delivered fantastic and layered performances) were allowed to be just that, human, and it was clear that director Sarah Gavron had no intention of diluting the female characters’ strength and humanity in favor of upholding that all-important illusion that women on film are somehow vaporous or otherwordly. Too often, female characters — whether they’re “good” or “evil” — are reduced to caricatures of real women, in order to make them more marketable for the masses.
The biggest criticism of Suffragette seems to be that Suffragette only focused on the militant side of the movement, when in fact, the peaceful protests were hugely significant. Where were the peaceful women? Or, in other words: Where were the women that behaved like we’re all taught to believe women should behave?
To this, I say: In a movie about men who go to war, do you expect to spend a significant amount of time with the men who choose not to fight? With the men who stay at home, or the ones who never see frontline action?
Why should Suffragette, a story about a militant group of women, dilute its message by showing us the women who did not fight, or who chose a more peaceful form of protest? This movie is not about those women. As a modern, intelligent audience, do we really need to be coddled, to be reassured that “some women are nice too”? No, we don’t, because we know that part of the story. I dare say we’ve seen enough movies that reinforce the stereotype of the soft, peace-seeking woman.
The suffragettes in this movie are beaten, and they beat back, backs against the wall and desperately scrambling for a justice they are repeatedly denied. They start speaking the language of war, because, as Mulligan’s character explains to Gleeson’s Inspector Steed, it appears to be the only language men understand. The characters are not perfect, but they have no obligation to be. Just like real women.
It is the realness, the unapologetic strength, and the complex and imperfect grace that makes Suffragette stand out. Everything about Suffragette is unapologetic and raw, from its pounding score and raw-faced female leads to its violent themes and heartbreaking storylines.
Sarah Gavron pulls no punches, and holds nothing back, just as Emmeline Pankhurst would have wanted. And it’s clear that audiences are ready for these types of female characters, with Mad Max: Fury Road and Sicario both making headlines for their unfiltered feminism.
‘Suffragette’ hits cinemas on October 23, 2015.
Rating: A