Suffragette

London, 1912. Maud Watts, who works in a laundry, keeps her distance from the women's suffrage movement at first. What she witnesses makes her a participant and then a radical: action instead of work, then arrest and a hunger strike. The story reaches its peak at the Epsom Derby with what happens to Emily Davison. Sarah Gavron directed, from a screenplay by Abi Morgan. Carey Mulligan plays Maud and Meryl Streep plays the movement's leader Emmeline Pankhurst. The production has a first to its name: it was the first feature film shot inside the Houses of Parliament. On a 14 million dollar budget it grossed 38 million worldwide. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 73 percent, the consensus saying it dramatises an important and still painfully relevant fact-based story. The publicity campaign drew a backlash. Cast members posed in shirts reading I'd rather be a rebel than a slave. The scholar Ana Stevenson called it insensitive, observing that wealthy, privileged white actresses were not comparable to enslaved people. Brendan Gleeson won Best Supporting Actor at the British Independent Film Awards and Carey Mulligan took the Hollywood Actress Award. Who it is for: viewers interested in historical rights struggles and anyone who wants to watch Mulligan. Who it is not for: anyone wanting the whole movement. It focuses almost entirely on white working-class women, which is precisely the narrowness the campaign row pointed at.