Months of Meryl: Suffragette (2015)
Thursday, December 13, 2018 at 10:30AM John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep.
#50 —Emmeline Pankhurst, key leader of the women’s suffrage movement in the United Kingdom.
JOHN: Vandalizing storefronts, detonating mailboxes, carrying out prison hunger strikes — these are but a few of the risky tactics employed by women in the British suffrage movement in and around London circa 1912. Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette chronicles the movement’s pivot to such dangerous gambles in an effort to draw attention and spark action for the cause. “Deeds, not words” became the new mantra after years of respectable yet unsuccessful solicitation of a woman’s right to vote. These radical activists, led by Emmeline Pankhurst and visionaries like Emily Wilding Davison, Edith New, and scores of others, believed that civil disobedience and militant action were the only ways to disrupt the status quo and achieve women’s suffrage. This crucial moment of history has rarely been represented on screen, save for glimpses of the movement in Mary Poppins or in a handful of documentaries, despite the exciting and provocative elements inherent in this important story.
Unfortunately, “Important Story” could appropriately serve as the tagline and governing principle of Gavron’s misguided though well-intentioned film...