If Thomas Hardy wrote movie scripts, he would love Suffragette. Instead of focusing on a real life member of the British historical struggle for women to get the vote, Suffragette creates a fictional working class woman as an opportunity to illustrate all the awful things that could legally happen to women during the early twentieth century and plopped her in the middle of a whirl of historical events that are relegated to the sidelines.
Suffragette then uses the melodrama to garner the sympathy of a twenty-first century audience that may be a little less than enthusiastic about the prospect of terrorism (bombing) or anarchist activity reminiscent of environmental or economic activists protesting meetings of the World Trade Organization (destroying property). Of course these forms of protest are not representative, but are only one facet of the tactics used by some suffragettes, who were not a monolith, but Suffragette primarily focuses on the radical aspects of the movement. Well-behaved women may seldom make history, but if predominantly peaceful black non-violent women behaved the same way as the white radical suffragettes, I wonder if they would get a movie lionizing their contribution to history? The implicit answer to this question is not a condemnation of Suffragette, just an observation.
Suffragette features some amazing performances by Helena Bonham Carter and Brendan Gleeson. Suffragette succeeds at showing how even people who are close to you can end up betraying you or not having your best interest at heart, but with a little less emotional manipulation of the audience, the impact of that message would have been stronger. Unfortunately Suffragette’s use of Spielbergian emotional manipulation is unnecessary and cheapens an already inherently interesting story. Check out Suffragette if you’re a fan of the actors, but don’t expect to walk away knowing more about that historical period. I suppose that I’ll have to check out Shoulder to Shoulder or Iron Jawed Angels for the American part of the story.