Suffragette review: Opening this year’s BFI London Film Festival, Suffragette is powerful, riveting and compelling.
Suffragette review
Suffragette has the distinct honour of opening the 2015 BFI London Film Festival, and also sets the theme for this year; women, and women in film. This superb drama revolves around the suffrage movement from the early part of the last century, and their constant campaigning for women’s right to vote.
The story begins in 1912, and centers on a small group of women within the movement that was led by Emmeline Pankhurst, here played by Meryl Streep. Leading the cast is Carey Mulligan, who appears as Maud Watts, a married, 24-year-old laundry worker from Bethnal Green in East London, who lives in a low-income home with her husband Sonny (played by Ben Whishaw), and young son. The film follows her story, and her integration into the feminist movement, and her involvement with local chemist Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham-Carter), and fellow laundry worker Violet Miller (Anne-Marie Duff). The story charts the group’s struggles with campaigning to change women’s rights in parliament, while constantly avoiding the arm of the law, here spearheaded by the relentless Scotland Yard police inspector Steed (Brendan Gleeson).
Suffragette review
Using fictional characters and telling a story also involving the key individuals involved with changing women’s rights in the early twentieth century, writer Abi Morgan (Shame) and director Sarah Gavron (Brick Lane) have crafted a powerful, compelling piece of cinema which captivates from the off. Full of strong performances, particularly from the leading Carey Mulligan, the film is wonderfully shot by Eduard Grau, with early 1900s England beautifully captured using actual locations from the period, most notably London’s Houses Of Parliament, with this motion picture being the first to be granted permission to shoot inside the historic, 900-year-old buildings.
Suffragette review
What’s outstanding about this film is the attention to detail. From the aforementioned cinematography to the stunning production design by Alice Normington, everything is nailed with authenticity and passion. As mentioned, the acting on display is also of the highest standard; the film is full of strong British actresses at the top of their game. Mulligan’s performance is powerful, heartbreaking and impactful, while Helena Bonham Carter – in fact the great-granddaughter of the then Prime Minister of England, H.H. Asquith, is reliably outstanding as Ellyn. Then there’s Meryl Streep, whose name alone dictates that we’re once again in for a treat, though let it be known that if she were able to muster a supporting actress Oscar nod as Pankhurst, which could very well happen, it would rival Judi Dench’s nod for Shakespeare In Love, as, despite what the posters tease, Streep appears on-screen in just one very short, though massively powerful scene more than halfway through the film.
So deserved of opening this year’s festival, and such an important, hard-hitting film, the themes in Suffragette are astoundingly still as relevant today as they were over one-hundred years. Suffragette is an oustanding piece of filmmaking.
It is powerful. It is compelling. It is one of the best films of the year.
Suffragette review by Paul Heath, October, 2015.
Suffragette opens to the 2015 BFI London Film Festival on October 7th, before opening nationwide on October 12th. It will be released in the US on October 23rd, 2015.
