Review by Jane Freebury
As arguments for human rights go, this
is in its quiet way a powerful one. All the more for the way it draws us into
the life of a laundress (Carey Mulligan) with lots to lose when she joins the
activists in London demanding suffrage for women in 1912.
Hard to credit that a hundred short
years ago, few countries besides Australia and New Zealand had given women the
vote. Until the list of dates for women’s suffrage scroll by country at the end
of the film show how slow the emancipation process has been.
Why would someone like Maud Watts
(Mulligan) join the women demonstrating in the streets? Risk a beating at the
hands of truncheon-wielding police, risk losing her job at the laundry, and
being cast out of home? The explanation provided by screenwriter Abi Morgan (Shame,
The Iron Lady) is that her path to activism is an accident, getting caught
up in a suffragette demonstration and then filling in at the last minute for a
friend and laundry colleague making a submission to a parliamentary inquiry
about health and safety conditions at work.
Maud tells the inquiry that she hopes
there is a chance to live a better life and not have to follow in the footsteps
of her mother who worked at the same laundry and died young. Women of her class
who spoke up and demonstrated risked far more than their establishment sisters
like Meryl Streep’s Emmeline Pankhurst who makes a brief appearance on a
balcony to deliver a rousing speech. Once Maud has spoken up, there’s no way
back.
Although the film doesn’t say as much,
the burgeoning suffragette movement that has attracted the interest of police
and security forces – personified in Brendan Gleeson as Inspector Steed – isn’t
the only source of civil unrest at this time. There were anarchists, communists
and other political activists making their presence felt. Yet in such turbulent
times the violence inflicted on the demonstrating women is genuinely
disturbing. Another jolt is the developing-world workplace conditions were the
lot of Britain’s working classes a short while ago too.
Tight and intimate framing pitches us
into things from the start as the hand-held camera weaves around the
characters, creating an immediacy and involvement that would have been
technologically impossible, a century before you could just whip out your
mobile phone to capture vision for the news. Eduard Grau’s camera draws you in
with subtle purpose.
Maud is one of those fictional
characters intended to bear witness to events, and Mulligan’s interpretation a
delicate and determined portrayal. I didn’t think the actress was right for Far
From the Madding Crowd but she is perfect here.
Maud is not as brusque as Helena
Bonham-Carter’s, a chemist busily involved in ‘deeds, not words’, but still
strong. No hint of suffragette leanings, nothing much bolshie about Maud at the
laundry where the lecherous boss (Geoff Bell) prowls the women for sport, or at
the home with her gentle but sulky husband and co-worker (Ben Whishaw) and
beloved young son.
Director Sarah Gavron has pitched her
period drama at a slightly less strident level than one might reasonably
expect, compared say to stories about other heroes of the civil rights
movements. However, she has still managed to create something powerful. And
still relevant.
4 Stars
Also published at www.janefreeburywriter.com.au