By Kara Fellows
Starring Carey Mulligan, Helen Bonhan Carter, Anne-Marie Duff and Meryl Streep, “Suffragette” portrays modern-day kick-ass women as 19th century kick-ass women.
Set in the early 1900s, “Suffragette” follows Maude Watts, played by Mulligan, as she is swept up into the suffragette movement. Maude transforms from a quiet, hardworking wife, mother and laundress to a strong, confident, homeless suffragette who sacrifices everything for her cause. Though Maude was not based on a specific historical character, her story was a common one for many of the lower-class suffragettes.
“They have the most to lose, and they made the biggest sacrifices,” Mulligan said, “And I think people reached a breaking point in their lives and it was at this time that a lot of these women realized that they needed to fight for this cause and they didn’t have a choice anymore in their lives.”
Mulligan talked with The SMU Campus Weekly earlier in the week about the film and what it meant for her and for people around the world. “Suffragette” deals with women’s equality in all aspects of life, and reflects the issues the world is facing regarding gender equality today.
Unequal pay is a hot topic in Hollywood. Sexual harassment is an issue on college campuses. More than 62 million girls are denied education across the globe. Each of these issues is touched upon in “Suffragette,” and they are still being dealt with more than 100 years later.
“We’re looking at a historical drama, something that seems like it was very long ago. But a lot of these things we still have to work on,” Mulligan said.
“Suffragette” was written, directed and produced by a team of incredibly talented women. Director Sarah Gavron had wanted to make a film about the suffragette movement for some time, but it wasn’t until she found producers Alison Olsen and Faye Ward as well as writer Abi Morgan that her dream became a reality.
“Honestly, I don’t think [Suffragette] would have been made by a man,” Mulligan said. “I think it was always going to take this group of really tenacious women to get it made.”
This film has all the action to keep you on the edge of your seat, all the drama to keep you guessing, and all of the modern-day relevance to make you think for a moment about the world we live in and the people who sacrificed everything to make it so.
