Rating: B
I had high hopes for this film after watching the trailer. With a respectable cast, a female director, female writer and killer trailer music, who could blame me? Despite this, I was determined to enter the cinema with a completely blank mind then exit with an unbiased and logical opinion. This was easier than I expected it to be.
Suffragette depicts a struggle that goes beyond it’s ending. We follow the tough laundress Maud Watts, (played by the extremely diverse and intelligent actress Carey Mulligan), in her inevitable entanglement with the Suffragette movement in 1912. Recruited by workmate Violet Miller (Anne-Marie Duff), Maud battles through arrests, beatings, force feedings and the loss of everything she loves for a cause she appears to have slipped into, yet holds onto fearlessly from the very beginning.
I was on the edge of my seat for most of the film. The acting was at its finest- who could resist Helena Bonham Carter’s ever so English ‘onwards and upwards’ airs, or Meryl Streep’s simple, effortless cameo as the political activist Emmeline Pankhurst- but the stars of the film were clearly Mulligan and Duff. Mulligan has played a fair few roles that stole my heart (An Education, Never Let Me Go) but this appears to be her most mature role so far, while Duff complemented Mulligan nicely, acting with great ease and conviction.
Suffragette depicts more of the violence of the situation than most people know of today. The beatings are harsh, the prison scenes are bitter and the physical and emotional toil wears the viewer down over the course of the film. The climax was brilliantly executed, and I found myself weeping thrice for Maud and her misfortunes. The fact that the film does not accuse but tells its story as well as educating its viewer delighted me all the more.
Overall, it was a powerful and emotional film, but don’t go if you can’t handle the feels. I walked out with the dawning realization that I had exhausted an overwhelming amount of empathy, but decided it was totally worth it.