Suffragette (film)
| Suffragette | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Sarah Gavron |
| Produced by |
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| Written by | Abi Morgan |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Alexandre Desplat |
| Cinematography | Edu Grau |
| Edited by | Barney Pilling |
|
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Focus Features |
|
Release dates |
|
|
Running time |
106 minutes[1] |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $14 million[2] |
| Box office | $14.2 million[3] |
Suffragette is a 2015 British historical period drama directed by Sarah Gavron and written by Abi Morgan. The film stars Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, Anne-Marie Duff, Ben Whishaw, and Meryl Streep.[4]
Filming began on 24 February 2014. It is the first film in history to be shot in the Houses of Parliament, done with the permission of MPs. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 12 October 2015 and had a limited release in the United States on 23 October 2015 by Focus Features.
Contents
[show]
Plot[edit]
Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) is a 24 year old laundress. While delivering a package one day she is caught up in a suffragette riot involving smashing windows where she recognizes one of her co-workers, Violet Miller (Anne-Marie Duff). Later, Alice Haughton (Romola Garai) the wife of an MP, encourages the women from the laundry to speak out to parliament and give testimony in order to secure the right to vote. Violet is the one who offers to testify, however she is beaten by her abusive husband and subsequently Maud is the one who testifies. Maud is energized by her testimony and goes with Violet and other women to see if women have been given the right to vote. When she learns that they have not the police officers turn on the women and begin beating them. Maud is caught up in the crowd and is arrested for a week. While in jail she meets Emily Davison, a confidant of Emmeline Pankhurst.
Returning home Maud faces social stigma from her neighbours and co-workers. She promises her husband Sonny to stay away from the suffragette. However, Maud is invited to a secret rally to hear Pankhurst speak. While there she has a brief exchange with Pankhurst after which she is detained by the police again who drop her off in front of her home. This time her husband throws her out on the street. Maud struggles to see her son despite her husband's objections and continues to work until her picture is printed in the newspaper as a known suffragette. Maud is then fired and reaching a breaking point, takes an iron and burns the hand of her male supervisor (who has been sexually abusing her and other young girls in the laundry for years). The police are called and Inspector Steed (Brendan Gleeson) allows her to leave and offers her an opportunity to inform on the other members of her cell. Maud refuses.
Sonny continues to bar Maud from seeing their son and she eventually learns that as he has been ostracized by the community he no longer feels capable of taking care of their child. He gives their son Georgie up for adoption. With no family ties Maud becomes more and more radical and is involved in the bombing of mailboxes and the cutting of telegraph wires. However, the police begin to pressure the newspapers to drop the story and the suffragettes feel that they must do more drastic activities in order to gain attention for their cause. The women decide to attend the Epsom Derby where King George V will be in attendance in order to step in front of the cameras and unfurl their pro-suffrage banners. However, the day of the event only Maud and Emily Davison are able to make the event. When they are blocked off from the area where King George V is standing Emily decides that they must carry on anyway. While the race is in flight Emily steps onto the track and Maud witnesses as she is trampled to death. Suffragette Maud later joins in her funeral procession.
Cast[edit]
- Carey Mulligan as Maud Watts (fictional) [5]
- Helena Bonham Carter as Edith Ellyn (fictional) While Ellyn was not a real person, she was somewhat inspired by Edith Garrud; Bonham Carter modelled her performance after Garrud and requested the character's name be changed from Caroline to Edith in honour of her. Bonham Carter is the great-granddaughter of H. H. Asquith, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1908–16, the prime years of the suffrage movement, which he opposed. [6][7][8]
- Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst (real person) [4]
- Natalie Press as Emily Davison (real person)
- Anne-Marie Duff as Violet Miller (fictional) [9]
- Romola Garai as Alice Haughton (fictional) [9]
- Ben Whishaw as Sonny Watts (fictional) [9]
- Brendan Gleeson as Steed (fictional) [9]
- Samuel West as Benedict (fictional) [9]
- Adrian Schiller as David Lloyd George (real person)
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
In April 2011, it was announced that Film4 Productions, Focus Features and Ruby Films were developing a history drama film about the British women's suffrage movement of the late 19th and early 20th century.[10] Abi Morgan was set to write the script while Sarah Gavron was attached to direct the film.[10] on 24 October 2013, it was revealed that Pathé has replaced Focus, while the BFI Film Fund was to fund the film.[5] Focus Features acquired the North American rights to the film from Pathé on 17 March 2015.[11]
Casting[edit]
Carey Mulligan was cast to play the lead role on 24 February 2013;[5] Helena Bonham Carter joined on 20 December 2013;[6] Meryl Streep was cast as British suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst on 19 February 2014;[4] Ben Whishaw and Brendan Gleeson joined the cast on 20 February 2014.[9]
Filming[edit]
Principal photography of the film began on 24 February 2014 in London.[9]
Release[edit]
On 27 March 2015, Focus Features set the film for an 23 October 2015 limited release in the United States.[12]
In June 2015, it was announced that Suffragette would receive its European Premiere on 7 October 2015 as the opening film of the BFI London Film Festival. The LFF Director Clare Stewart said Sarah Gavron's feature was an “urgent and compelling film, made by British women, about British women who changed the course of history.”[13] The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on 4 September 2015.
The group Sisters Uncut demonstrated at the London premiere against cuts to domestic violence services,[14] which Helena Bonham-Carter described as "perfect. If you feel strongly enough about something and there's an injustice there you can speak out and try to get something changed". Carey Mulligan said that the protest was "awesome" and that she was sad she had missed it.[15]
The film was released domestically on 12 October 2015.[16]
Critical reception[edit]
Suffragette has received mostly positive reviews. on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 72%, based on 129 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Suffragette dramatizes an important – and still painfully relevant – fact-based story with more than enough craft and sincerity to overcome its flaws."[17] on Metacritic, the film holds a score of 67 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[18]
Particular praise has been directed at the cast, most notably Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter, with some reviewers commenting that both actresses could be in the running for Academy Award nominations. The film itself has also been tipped as a possible contender for Best Picture. Whilst Meryl Streep's brief appearance has been praised, there has been some criticism that her significant position within the marketing was misleading.
Claims of racial insensitivity[edit]
In the lead-up to the film's release, Suffragette was criticized, largely on social media, for not depicting suffragettes of color. Guardian writer Rebecca Carroll supported this criticism, accusing the film of "erasure" and stating that "in 2015 feminists of colour are still trying to get our particular story into the collective consciousness."[19] Critics have also argued that one of the publicity campaigns for the film, in which the four (white) lead actresses wore t-shirts containing the words "I'd rather be a rebel than a slave" (words from a speech by Emmeline Pankhurst), was racially insensitive.[20][21]
At a BAFTA screening of Suffragette in London on 17th November 2015, the film's screenwriter Abi Morgan stated that, due to the low levels of non-European immigrants residing in Britain in 1911-13, there were very few suffragettes of color in the UK, and that those few, such as Indian princess Sophia Duleep Singh, were upper class women who did not move in the working class circles in which Suffragette is set. Historian Dr Paula Bartley confirmed that the film's depiction of race was historically accurate, telling the New Statesman, “Britain [in 1911-13] was a white society in the main, and [its] suffragette movement reflected that." Dr Bartley stressed that the British suffragette movement was “very different from the American case or the Australian case or the New Zealand case, because although there were ethnic minorities in Britain at that time, there wasn’t the same scale or the same questions of citizenship as there were in other countries”. [22]
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