Women. Half the world’s population. The main reason that any of us exist. Without women, the world would be completely fucked. So when I look back on history, I find it quite disheartening that these essential and amazing beings have had to go through so much hardship… and that they still kind of do these days. Hopefully we can better ourselves soon.
Disclaimer: I know this thing is based on a true story, but I will not base my review on how perfectly accurate to the real situation it may or may not be, but I will instead judge it as a movie… which it is. Disclaimer over.
Ladies and gentlemen… “Suffragette”.
London, 1912. Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) is a laundry worker. She soon finds herself getting acquainted with the suffragette movement, and eventually joins them in their quest for voting rights. So now we have our historical drama. And is this plot any good? Yeah, it’s really good. It’s an engaging and at times even disturbing narrative, showing what kind of hardships and horrors these women had to go through, just because they wanted to be able to vote. At times it almost slips into pander-y Oscar bait, but it never falls into that trap, succesfully keeping a good balance of historical and emotional storytelling.
While I don’t think any of the characters are necessarily bad, I just didn’t find myself fully interested in all of them… found several of them a little undercooked. Carey Mulligan plays Maud Watts, a young mother and laundry worker who gets involved with the suffragettes. She’s determined and smart, but she does also show a more vulnerable side of herself, giving her a bit more depth as a character, and I actually cared about her quite a bit. And Mulligan is of course fantastic in the role. Helena Bonham Carter plays Edith Ellyn, a pharmacist and suffragette. She’s tough as hell and is always willing to stand up for her rights. And while I applaud those traits, I never found the character to be the most well realized. But I can say that Carter is great in the role. Ben Whishaw plays Sonny, Maud’s husband. While he is supportive of his wife, he is quite torn about her getting involved with the suffragettes’ protests. And while that could be interesting, they don’t go the full length with that and it becomes okay at best. Whishaw is really good at least. And I’m just gonna say it, what I said about Whishaw’s and Carter’s characters kind of goes for all the other ones as well… not bad, just slightly undercooked. At least we get some damn solid performances throughout the movie from people like Brendan Gleeson, Anne-Marie Duff, Meryl Streep, Geoff Bell, Romola Garai, Finbar Lynch, and many more.
The score for the movie was composed by Alexandre Desplat, and I think he did a great job with it. What I liked most about it is that whether a track goes for sweeping and dramatic, or smaller and more personal, it always has a solid emotional core that makes the score some real ear candy. Seriously, it’s fucking beautiful.
This movie was directed by Sarah Gavron and I think she did a really good job with it. What I like about directing is that it’s versatile. When things are a bit more calm and contemplative, the camera is steady. But when things get more intense and (for lack of a better word) action-packed, it gets a bit more shaky, but never so much as to be a pain. I saw one guy describing it as a bit Paul Greengrass-ish, and I think that’s a pretty good description of it. And I think it really adds to the movie.
This movie has been pretty well received. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 72% positive rating. On Metacritic it has a score of 67/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 6,9/10.
While flawed, I still think “Suffragette” is a really good and important movie. It has a great plot, some okay characters, great performances, great music, and really good directing. As previously mentioned, I found some of the character work here to be a bit lackluster, but that’s about it for flaws. Time for my final score. *Ahem*. My final score for “Suffragette” is an 8,87/10. So while flawed, it’s still worth buying.
My review of “Suffragette” is now completed.
Nice to see Helena Bonham Carter going for a more “normal” role for once.
TheMarckoguy 