Director: Sarah Gavron
Year Released: 2015
Rating: 2.0
Abused female laundry workers, including Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan), raise hell in England to demand the right to vote - led by sneaky activist Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep) - but the Men aren't too happy about this and think nothing of beating and imprisoning the (justifiably) angry ladies (Ye Ol' Tymey Grrl Power!). It gets a little too over-zealous with the abuse and there's no shortage of Bad Men to punish (except for Helena Bonham Carter's husband and maybe Brendan Gleeson's character, who tells Watts he's just doing his job) - Abi Morgan's script is functional if lazily laid out - with Mulligan given the task of holding it together: the conflict she feels over abandoning her husband (Ben Whishaw) and son (Adam Michael Todd) to fight for a cause she believes in is unmistakable. Although this was made in 2015, Gavron and her crew couldn't have possibly known how this would tie in to the (nonviolent) 2017 Women's March on Washington, D.C. (and across the world) to protest the election of Emperor Trump and his disregard for women and their rights and dignity: "I can't believe I have to keep protesting this shit," one older woman's sign read ... I'm sorry, but it appears that you do.
