User reviews

As we struggle and grapple with contemporary inequality issues – race, the economic divide, gay rights, etc – it is well to see this film, reminding us that it has been less than a century since women's rights were recognized and women made equal to men in voting, parental rights (if not economic equality….) and presence in politics and entertainment. Abi Morgan's script is excellent as is Sarah Gavron's direction, and with the superlative support of a cast of gifted actors this film breathes reality, memory, and reminders of a status struggle of the fairly recent past.

SUFFRAGETTE tracks the story of the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State in England. These women were not primarily from the genteel educated classes; they were working women who had seen peaceful protest achieve nothing. Radicalized and turning to violence as the only route to change, they were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality - their jobs, their homes, their children and their lives. Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) was one such foot soldier. The opposite side of the feminist movement is well presented by Maud's husband Sonny (Ben Whishaw (on of the more gifted actors on the screen today) who provides a degree of bilateral balance, a man who loves his wife and child and simply does not want to see his family endangered by Maud's growing involvement in the movement.

Other brilliant performances are offered by Anne-Marie Duff, Romola Garai, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleason, Natalie Press and Meryl Streep as the queen of the movement Emmeline Pankhurst.

The story of Maud's fight for dignity is as gripping and visceral as any thriller, it is also heart breaking and inspirational. An altogether brilliant film. Grady Harp, February 16

Partly I'm writing this review because of the rather negative summation by the review showing on the main page. The purpose of art is greater than titillation and amusement. Art has many functions one of which is to reflect ourselves to ourselves.

In Suffragette, a competently made film in which the acting is worth praise and the setting convincing for 1912 London an extraordinary piece of our social and political history is told. Certainly I have always been proud that my native country, New Zealand was the first nation to give women the vote (1893, well before even its neighbour Australia which followed in 1902 a year after Federation).

Social change never comes easily and replacing entrenched patterns, prejudices and fears takes time and courage. This is what this film depicts, the sacrifice required of so many women to achieve fundamental social justice in a society dominated by prejudice and physical force.

I didn't find watching this film easy and it was not intended to be easy viewing for its heart is changing the dominant paradigm. I find its message very relevant to today's politics and Corporate behaviour wherein we, the people,are treated as mere consumers and every day our rights shrink under the claim of fighting terrorism. the answer then for the suffragettes as it is today is awareness and this film raises awareness in style. For this reason alone I score it 10 our of 10 and urge you not to miss it.

When a film about the passage of the Voting Rights was made the Martin Luther King character said that even with the Civil Rights act of 1964 was passed, black people needed this lest elected officials with a vested interest in the segregation system water down and neutered the equality promised in the civil rights act. I think possibly the women realized that because the focus of their struggle was first and foremost on the voting franchise.

Suffragette takes a serious look at the women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom which was progressing parallel with the movement in the USA. The times of Great Britain just prior to her entrance into World War I are accurately portrayed. Several historical figures are in this drama including Emmeline Pankhurst the Susan B. Anthony of Great Britain played by American Meryl Streep.

But the story of the movement is encapsulated in an Oscar worthy performance by Carey Mulligan. She plays a lower class laundry worker who gets dragged into the movement and gets an awakening that she should not accept her inferior status in society. Her husband Ben Whishaw is your ordinary working class man of the time who simply accepts male superiority in society as his due. She gets sexually molested by her supervisor at the laundry and Whishaw is mad at her for not just sucking it up. Her suffrage activities get her arrested and Whishaw feels he has to separate from her and he takes custody of their child. He has the right and she has none in that society. This fact in life in those times and this incident illustrates in Suffragette why the women in the movement worked as hard as they did.

The film climaxes with the famous death of Emily Davison at the English Derby at Epsom Downs. That incident was recorded in the silent newsreels of the day, the newsreel in fact was created at that time. Ms.Davison played by Natalie Press threw herself in front of the oncoming horses and was killed. It was her way of making the statement. Knowing that was to happen in watching the film I was still jolted by the way it was done and how gallantly Davison sacrifices herself. She gives her last words to the fictional character Mulligan plays.

Better than any other film and there are few enough film portrayals of the Suffrage movement I hope that Suffragette gets due recognition by the Academy in giving out Oscars. This film should be mandatory viewing in schools for anyone to understand the women's movement.

Suffragette (2015) is an English film directed by Sarah Gavron, It stars Carey Mulligan as Maud Watts, a working-class woman who is recruited into the Suffragette movement by her friend Violet (Anne-Marie Duff). Maud Watts has worked hard and long in a laundry, and she is so accustomed to the heavy work and abuse that she accepts it as the normal way of life. She gradually sees that women are unfairly treated, and that there is little hope for improvement until women obtain the vote.

Maud starts attending clandestine suffragette meetings, where she meets Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter), who is (I believe) a pharmacist, although she was trained as a doctor. Maud joins the suffragette cause, and this causes enormous disruptions of her home, family, and work. She eventually meets--and is inspired by--Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep in a cameo role).

Brendan Gleeson plays Inspector Arthur Steed, a tough policeman, who is experienced in battling guerrilla warfare in urban situations. Steed clearly respects Maud, but he has an "orders are orders" mentality. I think he would actually like to support the suffragettes, but he'll never do it.

The plot of the movie is the transition of Maud from someone who accepts the unjust social order to someone who will do almost anything to change the social order. Carey Mulligan is superb as Maud. You can accept her as a working-class woman, but you can also accept her as a intensely committed foot-soldier in Emmeline Pankhurst's army.

I can't imagine success for this film without a believable Maud. Carey Mulligan is a believable Maud. She deserves an Oscar for her portrayal of Maud Watts' transition.

We saw this film on the large screen at the excellent Little Theatre in Rochester, NY. It will work almost as well on the small screen.

Note: Suffragette is carrying a dismal 6.8 IMDb rating, but I don't know why. It's a much better film than that. My suggestion is to see it despite the rating. It's a truly great, important, movie.

A great movie about women's struggles to have their own voice.

Suffragette (2015) is a Directoral collaboration between Sarah Gavron (Brick Lane) and writer Abi Morgan (Iron Lady), funded by the British Film Institute. Carey Mulligan is compelling as Maud watts, the Laundry worker who discovers the WSPU through Violet Miller (Ann Marie Duff) and Shopkeeper Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter). Their WSPU cohorts are Mrs Withers, Emily Davison, Mrs Haughton (Romola Garai)and WSPU founder Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep)who is only in the film for a few minutes. The film is an Historical drama, not biopic set in London that follows the early members of the Women's Social and Political Union and their radicalisation from peaceful protesters to law breakers. The film documents WSPU's secret meetings to discuss tactics when protests and parliamentary evidence fail to win women the vote. After further mistreatment by employers, police and political lies by Lloyd George the suffragettes decide to increase their activism through civil disobedience causing damage to Oxford Street windows, postboxes, churches and politicians homes. Police surveillance and arrests lead to the suffragette's imprisonment and hunger strikes. The script and acting is powerful and emotional and the film is a well directed attempt by Gavron to tell the Suffragettes story with compassion covering the impact on working class women, middle class educated women and the Gentry. The Director further develops socio-economic divisions by including the suffragettes husbands struggle to support their wives activism through Mr Watts, Mr Ellyn and Mr Haughton.

What impressed me the most was the blending in of the real footage plus the list showing the years when equal women right was introduced in countries all over the world at the end of the film. It was both shocking and sad.

That this is a problem now as much as it was 100 years ago (maybe not quite that much), shows the IMDb rating, it just confirms my suspect that every comic book movie will get into the all-time-top-50 list, while amazing movies with difficult subjects (like this one) will likely be ignored. Also note the percentage of male raters in the IMDb statistics.

To put it blunt, if this movie would be renamed Star Wars it would easily end up with a rating above 9. That would be a more accurate rating.

This is a must see movie for all women, especially the young. We owe a lot to these suffragettes. Many of them were beaten, disgraced, fired from their jobs for protesting for a cause that men took for granted. We still do not have equal pay. There are countries who still allow women to be publicly abused. Some places still don't even allow young women the right to an education. For all the men critics who have reviewed this movie and gave it a bad review for whatever reason. Enough. You really have no right to judge. I am thankful there were women before me who paved the way, for many of my rights today. We must give homage to these women, even in our movies.

I LOVED this movie! It is the gripping story of the suffragette movement in England, with brilliant performances by Kerry Mulligan and Helena Bonham-Carter. It portrays in stunning reality how vastly different women were treated a mere 100 years ago. During the movie, I kept thinking about how young women today would find it astonishing that women had no rights whatsoever back then.

On the other hand, the movie shows that many of the issues faced by working women then are the same issues women deal with now: inequality of pay, sexual harassment, child care, lack of education.

Fortunately, the movement for women's rights corresponded with labor movements in general that spawned legislation prohibiting child labor, improvements in workplace safety, and other issues.

Watching this movie should be an extra-credit assignment for all high school history students so they truly understand how brave the women were who fought the war for their rights. I applaud the producers and cast for making this marvelous movie.

Great film, well acted and surprisingly accurate though not based on an actual individual freedom fighter but an amalgamation of various heroines.

Sadly women's suffrage has been widely ignored in education which is a great pity as these women were lionesses who in ancient history would have been feisty Spartan mothers. From the little I know about the torture, humiliation and brutality used against the Suffragettes this film captures some of the awful abominations like being force feeding nasally whilst on hunger strike. This happened and I was privileged enough to listen to a veteran Suffragette who was recorded by the BBC in the 60's or 70's describe her own experiences and the impact of torture physically and mentally she bore for her remaining years.

I respect the Suffragettes in the same way I respect all abused groups who sacrifice everything for liberty at great cost to themselves, perhaps the soldier in me understands courage against overwhelming odds. These great women went on to lose husbands, sons & brothers in the carnage of World War 1 & to some degree in WW2. They helped win if you can call it that both World wars to despite how they were treated, I can't help but feel that that fire and determination was due to the Suffragettes & Suffragists.

People have felt the film drags in places but I would prefer that to an action film. The cast was excellent and the scenery,costumes and sets were as authentic as possible.

Great film now useless vile politicians both male & female build a permanent memorial on the empty plinth to remember the movement.

Thought provoking movie. I note some are discounting it for 'not being historically accurate'. It's always good to note this sort of thing if it's the case, and good on them for drawing our attention to that point to explore, however I think that whether it is, or isn't, completely accurate, the movie still actually gets a message across and sets one to contemplating the lives and times of our own Mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother and what the political climate was in each of their own lifetimes. It's quite amazing how we, as 'modern' women, pretty much take for granted the freedom we have, when it really wasn't all that long ago that they didn't have them or at best were limited. Yet there are still some today who won't vote, even though they have the right. Seeing the list of nations at the end showing the year in which they obtained the right to vote, was eye opening! In my view, if it at least serves as a stepping stone or starting point for some women (and/or men) to discover more on the subject of suffrage and/or women's studies then it has achieved something valuable. I enjoyed the character of Maud greatly and that the focus of the story remained on her for the most part. Overall, an enjoyable movie, which I think is worthy of the time spent viewing.

Classic script, sterling performances brings life and reality to 1918 Britain and shows the anguish and pain women endured because they had no right to anything: money property, even their own children.. Britain, at that time, was a police state that did not allow opposition. Over 1000 women protested, some with dire consequences, to even get the right to keep their own children. Husbands had all the power -- and could "sell" a child (adopt it out) anytime he wanted citing the mother as a bad influence. This vividly raw picture is a story of a place and time that we never want to re-visit.

This film left me with many emotions such as: anger, pity, cynicism. My frustration turned to anger as I noted that it was a woman cleaning the cinema, and wondered what had changed. Have women gained true equality? Was the 'right to vote' just 'lip service' to the women's cause?

The film got me wondering about my grandmothers, and the exciting period they witnessed, and yet my grandmothers still struggled as a woman. My grandmothers were always scrubbing floors, washing clothes, cooking whilst still going out to work in some menial, low paid job. This despite gaining the right to vote!

The film is set in London's East End, and looks at the life of one woman in particular. This woman might represent all of our grandmothers, and great grandmothers; the typical lives they lead and the low expectations of a working class woman at that time. This part was delivered competently by actor Carey Mulligan as Maud the laundry worker, who was swept up into the movement by default.

Her plight was a daily grind of hard, physical labour in a low paid job, daily sexual harassment from her boss, and obedience to her Edwardian husband. Therefore, not much different from the lives of many working class women today.

To that end, this film was not essentially one about the first wave women's movement, but about working class women's lives. These women were at the bottom of the social pile, and subject to exploitation by their employers, their men folk, and by middle class women and their causes! You might say, as suggested in the film, fodder of the cause!

As for the acting, the part of Maud was played well by Mulligan; she and other actor, Anne-Marie Duff, who played Violet, were the epitome of careworn working class women, who were vitamin deficient and malnourished and plainly worn out.

However, superstars such as Meryl Streep just re-acted the part she played as Mrs. Thatcher in The Iron Lady (2011). Accordingly, she just didn't convince me that she was the great Emmeline Pankhurst of the women's moment. I expected more acting ability from Streep gven her world class record. As for Helena Bonham-Carter, she just playis the same part in every role. She never changes her style of acting. She is also typecast as an Edwardian woman in most films.

And while this film is set in an Edwardian period of British history, it has many anachronisms, such as when the suffragettes chained themselves to the railings of the period were wrongly situated. But, I won't nitpick, as the main point was made! That point was to protest in a radical way.

This radical method of protest was met with the ultimate sacrifice to the cause, by Emily Davidson, who died in the name of the cause at the feet of the King's house at the Epsom Derby. The film portrayed her as an almost innocent protester, who thought that the horse would stop and acknowledge her protest. But the most telling aspect of this ultimate sacrifice was, as the the film points out, that the derby officials, medics and spectators rushed to tend to the jockey and the horse as opposed to Emily Davidson.

At this juncture in the film, it morphs into the actual black and white film reel of the real suffragettes, who marched, agitated and died for women all over the world. This was illustrated beautifully with a roll call of countries where women gained the right to vote, and the one that has yet to give women the vote.

All in all, a great film, directed by Sarah Gavron in tribute to these brave women. The question is, was their bravery all in vain? Moreover, where are the feminists to the cause those days?

Loved Carey Mulligan here, she played her character deftly, maintained her humanity while developing a sense of herself as a woman, and then as a suffragette. She brought to life the trials and tribulations of women generally, from all walks of life and social statuses, in their long struggle to gain the vote. This was a good overview, provided some concrete background for just how long it took. We women of today have no idea what it took, how brutal the push-back became, how many decades passed from beginning to end. And that was just in Britain! Meryl Streep was eloquent, enthralling in identifying why they struggled, what was at stake, and how "going back to the old ways" was simply out of the question. Even for those women who seemed content to maintain what little they had, unwilling to fight because of the great potential costs to them personally. Generations came before those depicted in this movie, and still the struggle continued after the credits rolled here. Great cast all the way around, a joy to watch, thank you one and all, ladies and gentlemen!

Suffragette is a phenomenal movie directed by Sarah Gavron. I love this movie because it ties real historical events into a realistic story about the hardships women dealt with just a century ago. This historical drama incorporates realistic period costumes and accurately spot-on settings to depict how women were considered less competent and less deserving of rights than men.

Suffragette is about a feminist movement consisting of powerful women dedicating their lives to attaining the right to vote. Set in London 1912, Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) is a wife and mother on the verge of becoming a suffragette. After attending one of the suffragette meetings, she learns how much of a commitment it is to participate and what the risks are. She makes many friends from the suffragettes such as Violet Miller (Anne-Marie Duff) who is there with Maud every step of the way. Violet is a true believer for women's rights and makes an immense effort to be heard.

My favorite scene is when the women are fighting for their rights and are arrested. After they get out of jail, the women are handed flowers and a medal. They are congratulated for their first incarceration. As one of the suffragettes said, "We don't want to be lawbreakers, we want to be lawmakers". This really shows that the women are not trying to be rough, it was a desperate plea to get the attention they rightfully deserve.

My favorite character is definitely Maud Watts. She is a powerful woman and she shows that women can do anything they put their mind to. She is so determined to get her rights that she sacrifices her family, her job and her house to stand up for what she believes in. Another stand out performance is Helena Bonham Carter who plays Edith Ellyn. She really inspired me as she encouraged the others to stand up and never give up even when it seems impossible.

I recommend Suffragette for ages 13 to 18 because it is a little bloody when the women are getting beaten. I do believe that if you are 13 or older, you should definitely see this movie because it educates viewers regarding a significant part of history. I give this movie five out of five stars because overall this is an outstanding movie. You may see Suffragette in theatres now!

Reviewed by Lainey A., KIDS FIRST! Film Critic.

I didn't have high hopes going in; thought it might be like a lifetime movie of the week. but high production values, great script and stellar acting. i had not seen carey mulligan in much and did not know much, but she blew me away in this. i highly recommend this to anyone. this is NOT a chick flick. I think all college and high school students should see this, not only for the aspect of suffrage, but a look at turn of the century england/london. One thing it is not: meryl streep really has a cameo; if you are looking for a streep film, this ain't it.

The Suffragette is a real good movie that talks about the fight of woman to win their rights. It's an exciting movie, with schocking scenes as sexual abuse, death, and etc. It's important to make people conscious about history and woman's tragectory.

In this day and age many of us take a lot for granted. Often forgotten are those in history who fought so hard and valiantly in order for future generations to have better rights, and better lives because of those rights. The sacrifices of these women is to be applauded. I am in awe, as I am of any oppressed peoples who have fought to earn the right to be treated as part of the human race and not be controlled as 'sub-humans'. As Carey Mulligan's character Maud Watts (rightly) says, "I'm worth no more, no less, than you".

This film brought forth so many emotions, and the horrendous treatment these brave women received was hard to watch. Yet through it all their spirits were strong and they never gave up.

A stellar cast with stellar acting performances. The historical detail and cinematography was excellent. Very authentic.

A film that touches your heart.