Instant Favorite.

A Masterpiece!

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

This is not a movie for entertainment or enjoyment. There is nothing nice see or watch, not a lot of happiness (although there are sparks), and no whimsical characters who always seem to know what to do. It's the reality of a time that forces social change: cold, unforgiving, alienating, unsure, and demoralizing. There are no magic answers, and even the leaders are scrambling to know what's next. Even those supposedly fighting for change aren't necessarily expressing agency, they are sometimes left with absolutely no other option.All that said, the film manages to be compelling despite that it is a stark and dreary 105 minutes. It helps that the cast brings humanity to the characters, which somehow gives a string of hope through everything.

In this day and age many of us take a lot for granted. Often forgotten are those in history who fought so hard and valiantly in order for future generations to have better rights, and better lives because of those rights. The sacrifices of these women is to be applauded. I am in awe, as I am of any oppressed peoples who have fought to earn the right to be treated as part of the human race and not be controlled as 'sub-humans'. As Carey Mulligan's character Maud Watts (rightly) says, "I'm worth no more, no less, than you".This film brought forth so many emotions, and the horrendous treatment these brave women received was hard to watch. Yet through it all their spirits were strong and they never gave up. A stellar cast with stellar acting performances. The historical detail and cinematography was excellent. Very authentic. A film that touches your heart.

The story of the Suffragette Movement and the right for the female vote is a fascinating and quite important part of history that is very much overlooked in film and still holds much relevance today.A large part as to why is the potential problems with how a film would portray it. Despite being really interesting, it is difficult to get the portrayal the Suffragette Movement and the right for the female vote spot on. There is always the danger of heavy-handedness, being too careful, being one-dimensional and being too cold or sentimentalised.'Suffragette' to me was a compelling film that did more right than it did wrong, but at the same time it does not escape a few of the traps that portraying this subject poses. It is a brave and worthy attempt though, and even though the finished product is flawed 'Suffragette' gets a lot of applause and respect from me for trying.It doesn't escape the trap of being heavy-handed, with some of the build ups overdone, occasional preachiness in the writing and parts in the music score intrusively orchestrated. While the brutality most likely did happen and it brings a darkness that stops the film from being too much of one tone, parts did jar like with the laundry boss, which agreed did feel like they belonged in another film.Nor does it escape portraying its characters in a stock and one-dimensional way. Did feel a lot for the women, and found myself inspired by their cause and rooting for them even if they did go the wrong way about it in parts of the film and in history. However, especially the boss and with the sole exception of Steed, the male characters are stock and unsympathetically drawn, found myself really infuriated by Sonny's actions as well and found him generally a placid personality. There are a few real life characters intersected here, which was interesting but appeared too briefly, while they made an impression David Lloyd George and Emmeline Pankhurst were reduced to cameo roles.However, it is very handsomely and evocatively mounted in period detail, being suitably naturalistic and sombre. The cinematography, with the hand-held technique, has been criticised for being excessive and lacking focus, it didn't bother me that much and thought it gave a real and appropriate sense of frenzy, claustrophobia and fear. Apart from the odd intrusive part, the music is rousing yet understated. Much of the direction gives clarity to the story and a sense of pace and the film always looks great.Much of the writing is fine too, some heavy-handedness here as well as parts that are a bit emotionally cold and too careful but the main and familiar events are handled powerfully, sincerely and thoughtfully. The storytelling, a vast majority of the time, is spirit-rousing, heart-stopping, moving and inspiring, the ending was really quite powerful.Carey Mulligan is particularly magnificent of the uniformly impressive cast, and Brendan Gleeson and Anne-Marie Duff are not far behind. Meryl Streep's appearance is brief but very memorable, while Helena Bonham Carter brings a wonderful feistiness to the ringleader of the group. Ben Whishaw, on the other hand, is a little dull as Sonny, though the way the character is written deserves a large part of the blame here, and the laundry boss character is too much of a stock pantomime villain-like character.Overall, brave, worthy and largely successful if flawed telling of a fascinating, important and relevant piece of history, that has been overlooked. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This should have been a gripping and rousing story about the British fight for women's right to vote, but the overly-long and meandering script spoiled the impact. The film came across as a made-for-TV docudrama.Women's rights is such an important issue that it's too bad the film wasn't done well, especially since it was written, produced and directed by women.The problem, as I see it, is that they tried to cram in too many little events and details rather than focusing on the main story of the political struggle. They should have edited the script much more carefully. They could have cut whole scenes and cut out superfluous characters and given the story more impact. For example, they didn't need to show the young girl being molested by the shop owner and later 'saved' by the main character. They could have instead shown that the women were at the mercy of the owner's lechery without bringing in a whole other character. They also could have skipped the force-feeding in the prison and addressed it in dialogue. Same for the hokey adoption scene of the little boy – that could have been done in dialogue, which probably would have been much more devastating. Cutting some of those 'detours' would have kept the focus on the political struggle AND would have cut at least 20 minutes off the running time of the film. Overall, a great opportunity to inspire was wasted.