If you, like I, saw some of the early advertisements for this movie, you probably avoided it for a while. A misguided photoshoot, you recall, for a particular Time Out article, featured in black-and-white coloring the four main actors in white t-shirts that read, "I'd rather be a rebel than a slave." Out of context, it's a troubling image that suggests slaves choose to be so, that only white women can be rebels or have the agency of choice, and that sexual injustice is historically the same as racial injustice. Furthermore, the film does not include so much as a passing reference to women of color advocating for suffrage in Britain at the time, such as prominent leader Sophia Duleep Singh, the Punjabi princess. Yet the film is not its marketing. Problematic and troubling as these choices were, Suffragette proves an effective movie with remarkably relevant messages.
This film, directed by Sarah Gavron (Brick Lane) and written by Abi Morgan (Shame, The Iron Lady), centers on a small group of working-class women in an isolated factory. As we saw in Detroit -- and in loads of historical films, actually, as The Patriot comes to mind -- it is unquestionably easier and usually more dramatically effective to explore a microcosm of some significant event than to survey an entire movement with too many characters and locations and times. This movie works so well because of its highly dramatized and somewhat fictionalized narrative. The real-life events were bigger than life, and so the specifics of the film are too. The whole thing may not be "true" but that doesn't mean the things it represents aren't.
Suffragette, as I said, follows a small group of factory women, specifically one Maud Watts played by Carey Mulligan. Seemingly by happenstance, she transitions from working on laundry to giving her testimony to parliament in an effort to gain the right to vote. Once denied that right, the women involved are beaten and jailed by the police, thus sowing the seeds of social justice in young Maud's heart. While she walks a dangerous personal line with her husband (Ben Whishaw), boss, neighbors, and coworkers, she finds friends who quickly band together and continue the civil disobedience. Joined by a cast of women soldiers including Anne-Marie Duff, Natalie Press, Romola Garai, and especially Helena Bonham Carter, these activists fearlessly fight the unjust law, brutal police (who knew force-feeding was so horrific to watch?), cruel husbands, and abusive employers. Jailed time and again, they paint a striking portrait of perseverance and desperation.
It's one of the best examinations in film of how and why activists can and often do turn violent to affect change: Their lives depend on it. Our expectations of early twentieth-century England are upturned by the fierce violence we witness. Gone are the strictures and finesse of Downton Abbey. Nowhere is the silly sweetness of Mrs. Banks, singing about being a "Sister Suffragette." This picture is filmed like a thriller, with a handheld camera that breaks any barrier between us and the action. Severe close-ups, thick atmosphere, and restricted vision keep things immediate and direct. Against a cold and bleak backdrop, the film highlights its own relevancy and declares its own burning anger. It's an urgent battle cry, one that will outrage you, work your tear ducts, and leave you breathless at its ending.
"I'd rather be a rebel than a slave," put back in its context, is the effective rallying cry of Emmeline Pankhurst, played by Meryl Streep. It's strange that she received such prominent billing for such a brief appearance (one scene, if I counted correctly). Pankhurst was, as history has determined, the iconic suffragist of the time, and so her appearance reminds us that the problems faced by our small band of heroines are reflective of the state of all women in Britain. Her presence, and the subsequent rioting, serves as a sort of turning point in Maud's character arc: Her firebrand style and oratory magic ignites a passion in Maud that radicalizes her and informs her behavior for the remainder of the film. It may not do quite the same for us, who know from history that Pankhurst's politics were not always so noble, but in the moment we understand how and why we would have gotten involved ourselves. Let us go forth and do likewise.
IMDb: Suffragette
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