User Reviews

Just saw this film, read a scathing review here, and felt compelled to balance the scales for this great movie. We loved it! Visually it is 100% on point: the cinematography, costumes, hair, sets, and styling. The acting was also very strong, and the script solid. Not sure what the negative reviewer watched, but we felt it was a great ensemble cast that achieved many emotional, nuanced moments. I am drawn to "period pieces" like this and found it to be quite wonderful. I will be recommending it to friends.

Year 1689 and a small province of today's Netherlands allowed women farmers to vote in local elections that then followed by Sweden, NJ in USA, New Zealand and many more ...even British india allowed women to vote in early 20th century... but it took years for this neutral, the richest country in the world to recognize women not as just maids, mothers and inferior to men.. although it feels more of a surface level but an insightful account of swiss women suffrage movement in 1971 ..countries like india already had a woman prime minister then...

Hopefully this summary line is not missunderstood, but here we go with what I mean, if you're interested -> don't cry, but rather act. As far as women movements go and oppression of women, there are a lot of stories that can be told (unfortunately, but let's hope we move forward and people will look at this and other movies and question a lot of things).

This is just one of them and as one other reviewer wrote, he/she felt reminded about another movement closer to the reviewers heart. Which makes sense and is what the movie aims to do. While the characters in the movie are divided and it may feel like a fight, the movie itself is rather uniting us the viewers. At least those who understand the message of course and don't feel differently. Having said that, the story is really engaging and it moves with an impeccable pace overall. More than decent and well done

I just came from seeing this movie at the Tribeca Film Festival. What a treat. I wanted to see it because it seemed incredible that the Swiss did not grant women the right to vote until the 1970's. How could such a country be so backward on women/human rights. Women were not allowed to vote, open their own bank accounts, or take a job without the permission of their husbands. Amazing! The acting was so natural and the cause so relevant today when women's rights are still under attack. One of the best movies with a message that I have seen in a long time. Brought back many memories I had of the women's movement in the U.S. in the 70's. Wonderful talk back after the movie with the director and some of the actresses.

The Swiss film Die göttliche Ordnung was shown in the U.S. with the translated title, The Divine Order (2017). The movie was written and directed by Petra Biondina Volpe. The film stars Marie Leuenberger as Nora, a wife and mother living in a small Swiss rural city.

Nora would like to work outside the home, but for this she needs her husband's permission. Starting with this revelation, we quickly learn that the society is incredibly patriarchal. The key point is that women can't vote. So, they can't change the rules that keep them down because they don't have the political authority to bring about change.

This change only came about because of women's work outside the system, using every tactic they could think of to get the system changed. (It did change, as we know. What I didn't know is that the last voting restriction against women didn't fall until 1991!)

In a movie like this, the quality rises or falls based on the work of the protagonist. Leuenberger is a experienced professional actor. She was superb in this role, and that isn't only my opinion. She won the best actress award in an international feature at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC for her work in The Divine Order.

This isn't a perfect film. There are some obviously contrived situations, and some very predictable scenes.

It sounds strange, but the movie was sometimes difficult to watch. Switzerland in 1971 was so bizarrely out of synch with the rest of the developed world that the setting felt like a medieval kingdom rather than a rich, modern, industrialized nation. I kept waiting for William Tell to walk down the street with his crossbow.

I had to keep reminding myself, "This really happened. Swiss women truly couldn't vote. Many men--and some women--wanted to keep it that way."

We saw this interesting movie at Rochester's excellent Little Theatre. It was shown as part of the 2017 High Falls Film Festival--Celebrating Women in Film. It will work well on a small screen.

I saw yesterday (Friday, 15 Dec 2017) in a cinema in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) the Swiss Film "Die Goettliche Ordnung" here named "Mulheres Divinas" (somewhat like "Holly Women", an awkward title for a great film). The film is spoken in Swiss German with subtitles in Portuguese. Once I did live very happily in Switzerland from 1986 to 1992 (a period quite close to the facts presented in the film) and since I even did learn and I actually do speak Swiss German due to my great integration into the Swiss way-of-life, the film touched deeply - really very deeply - my inner feelings (and I am a married man). Perhaps foreigners might not grasp all the subtle details on Switzerland, but the film conveys a lot of information on the country and their culture. "Schampar Guet", as I would say in Swiss German! Highly recommended.

I was really looking forward to see this movie. I always support Swiss movies being from Switzerland myself. So i was excited to see it. Sadly it is really bad. The worst movie I've seen so far this year. Before I want to start I want to say that i'm not against the message of the movie. I'm reviewing it as a movie.

First of all not everything is bad in this movie. I liked the cinematography. The scenes in which the main character was riding a bike were very well filmed. Some shots were very nice. There was subtle imagery you could pick up. The set and the costume were nice too and there were some scenes that were funny. The narration at the beginning was also well done.

The film fails in every level when it comes to acting, writing and the characters. The main character was boring and uninteresting her journey was very predictable and poorly developed. Also the actress who played her did a very bad job. I haven't seen anything else from her so I can't tell if it was her fault or the directors fault. Some of the other characters were at least a bit entertaining. The old lady for example. The Antagonists were cartooney and unrealistic none of them had any motivation what so ever. The tone of the movie was also way off it didn't knew if it wanted be a comedy or a drama. The Swiss German that they were speaking was very forced and awkward. But by far the worst thing was the dialogue and the way it was delivered. The dialogue seemed like it had been written by a 10 Year old. The ending was also very cheesy and it could have been easily delivered just through visuals. But no they had to throw in narration so that everyone could get it. The movie overall was very boring and dull and there was no real conflict at all. The 90 minutes felt very long. The argument many critiques make is that it is good for a Swiss movie and you shouldn't compare it to an American production. If it was for budgetary reasons why this movie sucked i would understand that argument. But it worked on a technical level. You don't need to have a big budget for a good script you don't need to have money for good acting. There are many independent movies from other countries that are great even with a small budget.

I really wanted to like this movie but I couldn't. The acting and the dialogue was just poorly done. I really hope that the director is able to continue to make movies and make improvements. Because I could see that she is talented.

But overall the movie was disappointing and really awkward.

I would give this movie a 3/10

What a movie. Once again Marie Leuenberger proved how varialbe her acting is. Like in "Die Standesbeamtin" she got the leading role here but this time it isn't her character which got all of the focus and it is good that it isn't. This movie is about the women back then and how they were treaten by their husbands. I knew worse tbh. I was a child back then but I remember well how my father acted and compared to what they portray in this movie, the movie isn't hard enough. It is diplomatic and portrays the men with a lot of mercy. But this is good for the entertainment. For those who think equality and the right to vote for women is usual this movie is a good reminder of how things were only a couple of years ago. When people rant about feminism, let them watch this. Without all these women who faught for later generations we still would be married to ugly old men, had no right to work or vote, had no right over our lives. This movie here is only one testimony and therefor important. It is not a documentary but it's telling a lot of how things were. I loved it.

I assume that the characters in "The Divine Order" were not based on real people, as the filmmakers surely would have indicated this was the case. However, it doesn't matter too much, as the story is based on women's push for suffrage in Switzerland...the last of the industrialized nations to grant this freedom.

The film is set in a small town in Switzerland in 1971. Women's rights are pretty much unknown to this part of the world and folks just seem to accept that it's God's plan for men to be in charge. However, slowly two women manage to convince the rest of the ladies in town that their cause is just...but they really need to convince the men since they are the ones who need to vote in favor of this.

While this story could have come off as angry or anti-male, it's really not...but more about just giving the women an even break. It also accentuates how beneficial this could be for the men...without being preachy. Well worth seeing and very well written, acted and directed.

Nothing spectacular. None of the over-the-top lambastadry you'd normally expect of a movie dealing with such a passionate subject. Just the truth. True feelings, true conflicts, true discovery. What could otherwise have been just another "me too" movie was done with such aplomb that it really managed to impress its message into the souls of the viewers.

I wonder now, in retrospect, if women's rights were another (perhaps major) facet of why "the west" was (and in many realms still is) so against socialism - which in its very fundament deems men and women to be equal?

By 1971, most of the industrialized world had universal suffrage. Holding out, surprisingly, was Switzerland. So naturally, the women there started organizing to demand voting rights. Switzerland's 2017 submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, "Die göttliche Ordnung" ("The Divine Order" in English) is about the suffrage movement there. I don't know about the people who campaigned for it, so I have to take the movie at face value. What the movie makes clear can get summed up with this quote that I once heard: it seems impossible until it's done. The people throughout the alpine country simply accepted that this was how things were, but the women organized to change things.

A particularly effective scene shows a hippie woman teaching the housewives about their sexuality; much like in the US, women were rejecting the demands placed on them by the patriarchy. Now in the US, we see women's rights under attack again.

In fairness to Switzerland, it wasn't the last European country to give women the vote. That dishonor goes to neighboring Liechtenstein, which held out until 1984 (to think that in my lifetime, there was still a first world country denying women the right to vote). What is it about the alpine countries and their regressive gender attitudes?

Anyway, excellent movie. Definitely see it.

Wish more movies like this can be made.

The Divine Order had a great script, just the right amount of light comedy, good acting and great direction.

The subject matter itself was insightful. Although to my knowledge it's not based on actual personas, it's still relatively based on historical facts. The right for women to vote.

Funny enough many of the unfortunate scenarios focusing on a woman's place in the home or society can still ring true today.

I just wish movies like this can be better advertised. The only reason I came across this film is by researching for the best films on Kanopy. It's make you wonder how many good films out there go unnoticed.