Suffragette (2015)

[SeanC]

 

In this award season where minority representation in Hollywood is the centre of the debate, spare a thought for the failed Oscar contenders starring white people, will you?

 

This movie is not without its strengths. I think the central character's journey from passive laundress to bomb-throwing militant is reasonably well-done, aided by a customarily strong performance from Carey Mulligan. Indeed, the whole working class milieu is nicely-done.

 

But I don't think the film has a good grasp on what it's trying to say, and once I realized the nature of the climax, the basic structure of the film becomes rather baffling. It became clear that we were heading toward a dramatization of one of the more famous incidents in the suffrage battle, the suffragette throwing herself in front of King George V's horse at the derby. Not knowing said woman's name, I was speculating whether our fictional lead was meant to be taking that place, but no, it quickly became clear that one of the other people in the group is said real person (Emily Wilding Davison). The problem: if the whole climax is going to be this woman's death and characters' reactions to it (underdeveloped as they are), why is Davison such a minor character? She's a total background character (basically an extra until the derby scene), while all the focus is on Mulligan and a few other fictionalized people. Her death then inspires Mulligan's character to randomly do something totally unconnected that it seems like she could have done at any time, and then the film more or less stops.

 

There's a basic problem about making a movie about bomb-throwing activists who are fed up with being quiet and respectable, in that the overwhelming consensus is that said militants didn't actually achieve anything and the expansion of the ballot was primarily due to women's role in the war effort in World War I. The filmmakers really don't know what to do with that; there's a way to make this movie that raises questions and leaves it to the audience, but I don't think that's what they were going for. Has Maud (Mulligan) renounced violence? Are we supposed to think that Davison's death meaningfully advanced the cause? Do the filmmakers?

[Sesquipedalia]

I get your point about the basic structure of the film being flawed, but I still loved it. And it certainly made a lot more sense than Mad Max Fury Road. 

[Which Tyler]

For those in the UK, this is on Channel 4 tonight