Review of Suffragette (2015) by David W — 07 Oct 2015

Although the suffragette movement has my absolute sympathy, the film did not really live up my hope and expectations. Apart from one major continuity error, several of the well-spoken actors seemed oddly miss-cast and struggled to produce consistently convincing cockney accents.

The insertion of a fictional character as the central lead (Carey Mulligan) made the whole story somewhat stilted, although it convincingly portrayed the immense suffering and sacrifice that many women had to endure. The film struggled not to fall into stereotyping the genders with the men all cast as villains and the women as heroines. However, the one exception to this was Brendan Gleeson who portrayed an M15 chief with alacrity. Although perceived as one of the main opponents of the movement, you also sensed moments of true empathy when his character's own humanity won through.