07-16-2020, 12:58 PM
Suffragette (2015)
Sadly this historical drama looks and feels like a TV movie, the direction by Sarah Gavron and the cinematography by Eduard Grau looks murky and uninspired and the script isn't particularly well written either. It was a mistake to make the whole film be about a fictional woman, even though the story builds towards the famous sacrifice of a real Suffragette Emily Davison. It's like the film itself only remembers this fact at the last minute and hastily tries to remind us who Davison is in her final and only significant scenes. Meryl Streep (who is all over the posters) is cast as WSPU founder Emmeline Pankhurst, surely a vital role in any Suffragette film but only turns up for 2-minutes and phones in what should be a rousing political speech (while Alexandre Desplat's score desperately tries to tell you how rousing it should have been). Star Carey Mulligan is miscast, Anne-Marie Duff who plays a supporting role would've been much better and more believable. Ben Whishaw is given the thankless task of playing Mulligan's underwritten and absurdly thoughtless husband. See the melodramatic scene where he gives their son up for adoption (on his birthday!). Annoyingly the only really three dimensional character in a film about women's suffrage is the Policeman tasked with trying to prevent it, played by Brendan Gleeson. A complex character who is clearly intelligent, thoughtful and sympathetic to the women's cause but is mercilessly determined to stop them anyway because it's just the job he's being paid to do. One interesting element was how the film portrayed the Suffragettes operating much like a modern terrorist cell (although their bomb targets were property and infrastructure, not human life) and the authorities surveillance methods felt modern too. I'm not sure how much of that was intentional though? It also effectively illustrated the many reasons for women needing power by showing a rich Suffragette being unable to bail out her comrades because her husband controls the cheque book, or Mulligan's character having no legal right to her own children and property, or another being unable to continue the political struggle because she's been made pregnant again.
Sadly this historical drama looks and feels like a TV movie, the direction by Sarah Gavron and the cinematography by Eduard Grau looks murky and uninspired and the script isn't particularly well written either. It was a mistake to make the whole film be about a fictional woman, even though the story builds towards the famous sacrifice of a real Suffragette Emily Davison. It's like the film itself only remembers this fact at the last minute and hastily tries to remind us who Davison is in her final and only significant scenes. Meryl Streep (who is all over the posters) is cast as WSPU founder Emmeline Pankhurst, surely a vital role in any Suffragette film but only turns up for 2-minutes and phones in what should be a rousing political speech (while Alexandre Desplat's score desperately tries to tell you how rousing it should have been). Star Carey Mulligan is miscast, Anne-Marie Duff who plays a supporting role would've been much better and more believable. Ben Whishaw is given the thankless task of playing Mulligan's underwritten and absurdly thoughtless husband. See the melodramatic scene where he gives their son up for adoption (on his birthday!). Annoyingly the only really three dimensional character in a film about women's suffrage is the Policeman tasked with trying to prevent it, played by Brendan Gleeson. A complex character who is clearly intelligent, thoughtful and sympathetic to the women's cause but is mercilessly determined to stop them anyway because it's just the job he's being paid to do. One interesting element was how the film portrayed the Suffragettes operating much like a modern terrorist cell (although their bomb targets were property and infrastructure, not human life) and the authorities surveillance methods felt modern too. I'm not sure how much of that was intentional though? It also effectively illustrated the many reasons for women needing power by showing a rich Suffragette being unable to bail out her comrades because her husband controls the cheque book, or Mulligan's character having no legal right to her own children and property, or another being unable to continue the political struggle because she's been made pregnant again.
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