Review thread for SUFFRAGETTE preview screenings: read the reviews! Non attendees: chance to win £100 NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

Ahead of the UK release of the acclaimed new film Suffragette on Monday 12th October, around 30 lucky MNers were able to see a preview of the film. Read on for their reviews.

If you didn't attend, there's a chance to win a £100 John Lewis voucher by sharing on this thread the woman (or women) in history who have most inspired you, and why you find her/ them inspiring.

‘Every daughter should know this history, every son write it on his own heart’ (Meryl Streep)
‘The Best Film of the Year’ (Elle)
‘The Most Important Film of the Year… A Must-See’ (Stylist)

Here's the film's synopsis:
"With an all-star cast including Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, Anne-Marie Duff, Ben Whishaw and Meryl Streep as Emmeline Pankhurst, SUFFRAGETTE tells the remarkable untold true story of the real foot soldiers of the Suffragette movement. These women were not primarily from the genteel educated classes, they were working women who had seen peaceful protest achieve nothing. Radicalised and turning to violence as the only route to change, they were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality - their jobs, their homes, their children and their lives. A story told by women, about women, that everyone should see…Mothers take your daughters, daughters take your mothers, women take your men!"

Watch the trailer below

The film is on general release in Cinemas from Monday 12th October - find out more and book your seats here: www.suffragettemovie.com #suffragette

Attendees: for a chance to win a £200 John Lewis voucher, please give your film review below:

~ What are your general feelings about the film? What's your headline review? Please give your rating from 1 to 5 stars where 5 is brilliant and 1 is poor.

~ Who you attended the screening with (friend/ mother/ husband etc)? What did they think of the film?

~ And in terms of the story and themes in the film - what do the Suffragettes mean to you? Who are the women that have most inspired you (suffragette or not)? How different do you think life is for women in the UK now? How far have we come?

Thanks and good luck with the prize draws.

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

What are your general feelings about the film?
Thought it was great! It brought history to life in a way reading about the Suffragette movement couldn't.

What's your headline review?
5/5
My headline is "The film that should be included in the National Curriculum"

Who you attended the screening with (friend/ mother/ husband etc)? What did they think of the film?
I attended with my 13 year old daughter. She loved it. All the way back home she was on Wikipedia trying to learn more about the characters. It fired her up and has made her decide that she is a feminist!

And in terms of the story and themes in the film - what do the Suffragettes mean to you? Who are the women that have most inspired you (suffragette or not)? How different do you think life is for women in the UK now? How far have we come?
I knew about the wealthy women who were involved in the movement, but it was the way that the working class women who were involved in the struggle were treated which was really inspiring. I never realised how much those women sacrificed. Losing ones child! Both my daughter and I sobbed at that point. I always thought that I would be a suffragette if I was alive in those times, now I'm not so sure if I would have had the courage.

What are your general feelings about the film? What's your headline review?
4/5
I'm toying between 4 and 5 stars but only because I felt at times the film was ticking off a list of issues. So for that it's a 4, but it's also a 5 because these issues weren't overdone dramatically or sentimentally, they were exposed, without comment as statements of fact and without bias.

Who you attended the screening with (friend/ mother/ husband etc)? What did they think of the film?
16yr old daughter, who loved it and was absolutely horrified by the stats at the end (as was I). Switzerland? really? shame. As a history student she questioned the veracity of the ending (don't want to give too much away). She said the person in question practiced what she was going to do, whereas in the film is was shown as a spontaneous action.

For me, the biggest achievement of the film was to bring the past into the present and make it real. I believe there is a tendency to relegate the suffragette movement to history and to think "Oh it's all OK now." But actually it isn't. Reading so many posts on MN you still see so many stories of women handing over earnings, of having no stake in decisions, in being disempowered in so many ways on daily basis.

The ending was totally brilliant. In including historical film reel into a present day cinematic experience it succeeded in exposing the realisation that although we have come so far, we are so much a part of that crowd of women who lived 100 years ago.

And in terms of the story and themes in the film - what do the Suffragettes mean to you? Who are the women that have most inspired you (suffragette or not)? How different do you think life is for women in the UK now? How far have we come?

There was a nod to Sonny being as much a victim of his time and expectations as women were, but I felt his character could have been developed in more depth.

Tbh, the Suffragettes to me were a product of their time before this film but I do feel now that the struggle is not yet done. (refer to rolling credits!) And I think perhaps I need to do more personally. DD is definitely onboard on this!

Women who have most inspired me? Oprah - if she was a UK citizen she would be Lady / Dame / Baroness and more. She deserves proper recognition outside of being a talk show host.

Soe operatives such as Violette Szabo, and female resistance fighters
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violette_Szabo

What are your general feelings about the film?
Excellent. I thought it would be informative, but didn't even consider the emotional aspect of it. The personal sacrifice that many people went through and the horrors were very hard watching but very relevant and enhanced the film.

What's your headline review?
5/5. Depicts personal sacrifice as well as important social change.

Who you attended the screening with (friend/ mother/ husband etc)? What did they think of the film?
My friend. She loved it. When the film finished she turned and said "do I have panda eyes, I shouldn't have worn mascara"

And in terms of the story and themes in the film - what do the Suffragettes mean to you? Who are the women that have most inspired you (suffragette or not)? How different do you think life is for women in the UK now? How far have we come?
I never contemplated the w/c women in the movement. I considered it as m/c movement until this film. Watching this has inspired me to read more about it. V uneasy watching how the m/c woman got bailed by her husband and couldnt bail the others despite it being her money. Control and sacrifice was different across the classes, but there was sacrifice.
Life undoubtedly is v different for women in the UK however there is still much more that can be done. And across the world, well when the credits rolled there was a collective gasp with the dates.

As great as Meryl Streep was as the legendary Emmeline Pankhurst, think it was misleading for her to have such a prominent position in the advertising in the film. The Violet character would have been more relevant.

I'd choose Grace O Malley the 16th century sea captain,pirate and adventurer from Galway Ireland

Non attendee: Who to pick as an inspirational woman. I have to say my mum.
She was left with my brother aged 6 months and I aged 3 when my father left home to live with a neighbour.
She never made us feel that we were missing out on anything and gave us so much love. She was a talented maths teacher all her working life and most of it as a caring teacher of special needs children. Alongside this she managed to achieve an MA in maths which I think is pretty impressive.
She made me realise that women are incredibly strong individuals and that as a single parent you can survive and raise your children to be kind, caring, thoughtful individuals who have much to offer the world.
Unfortunately she had to leave the job that she loved as she got Parkinson's. Again she impresses me with her ability to cope on a day-to-day basis doing things which other people find incredibly easy.
Cannot wait to see what looks like an amazing, girl power, inspirational film.

I didn't attend with mumsnet but wow what a film!

non attendee

well i must say girl power!

the film really put into perspective how far we have come as women i suppose and how far we still need to go.

~ What are your general feelings about the film? What's your headline review?

Inspiring and insightful. I loved this film. The characters were well played and believable and so really drew me in to the spirit of the time. I really felt myself rooting for them to get the vote and wanted them to win their personal battles. It was so interesting to see such an accurate account of such an historically important time yet have the personal stories of these East end women and their families inextricably linked with the political background. I would say 5 stars for this film of this genre.

~ Who you attended the screening with (friend/ mother/ husband etc)? What did they think of the film?

I took a girlfriend of mine. She is Italian and was so not aware of the story behind the suffragette movement here and so loved the film both for the story and the history. I invited this good friend as she is a bright capable women and she is a member of lots of women's networking groups. She said she really enjoyed the film and was so a bit embarrassed Italy was so late to introduce the vote for women.

~ And in terms of the story and themes in the film - what do the Suffragettes mean to you? Who are the women that have most inspired you (suffragette or not)? How different do you think life is for women in the UK now? How far have we come?

The film had some big themes: family, the individual vs society, relationships and the suffragette movement highlighted and has an impact on all of these. The women were very inspiring in the film for facing up to society and the conventions at the time and making huge personal sacrifices. I am astounded about how different life is now compared to how it was then. It's such a change my sons aged 6 and 9 can't actually conceive of how the world was and that women couldn't have the same rights. I am inspired by all kinds of women at work who break out of the mould and stand out in a mans world of finance. I love travelling and am also personally inspired by Freya stark travelling through Arabia alone and having an adventure at a time when only men were supposed to have all the fun.

Another amazing woman was Gertrude Bell. Read a book about her life, travelling in the Middle East, particularly what we now know as Iraq, during the early 1900s, the same time in history as the Suffragette film depicted.

She was quite incredible, worth reading about her.

I think there is supposed to be a film about her, with Nicole Kidman, but I doubt it will do justice to the real woman.

www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/12/iraq.jamesbuchan

First of all thank you MNHQ for arranging this - what a superb evening!

What are your general feelings about the film? What's your headline review?

I thought the film was one of the best I've seen in a long time. Definitely 5 from me. I felt it really showed us, without gratuitous/lascivious scenes the hardships that women were suffering at the time.

We really enjoyed that the story was being told by one of the foot soldiers of the movement - an ordinary, working class woman who took on the good fight. Had the story been more focussed on one of the well known Suffragette figures we thought that the story may have been lost a little - and the story of people who think they can't change anything changing everything is an important one.

My headline would be Ordinary Women doing the Extraordinary.

Who you attended the screening with (friend/ mother/ husband etc)? What did they think of the film?

DH came with me. He said it was very thought provoking and was interested in the modern parallels of how easy it is for someone to become marginalised, ostracised and then radicalised - thinking of course of young Muslims today. It showed, in his mind, how simple those steps were and how we as society are so judgmental when someone stands up for their beliefs.

And in terms of the story and themes in the film - what do the Suffragettes mean to you? Who are the women that have most inspired you (suffragette or not)? How different do you think life is for women in the UK now? How far have we come?

I grew up with a politically active mother. In fact she's still incredibly active as both a local politician and in trying to raise the profile and numbers of women in government at all levels. She wouldn't have been able to choose to go down this route were it not for the suffrage movement. I think the film will mean a lot to her as the Women's Local Government Society, where she is heavily involved, is trying to organise local commemorations for the ordinary women who were involved in the unrest that the WSPU promoted, much like the women in the film.

I admire any woman who gets involved in politics now, which is still seen very much as a man's world. Whether it's at local or parish level or taking office in parliament I think that all these women need our support and admiration.

Obviously I'd like to think that life is very different for women in the UK now than it was in the early 20th century, but whilst we have far more rights, there is still so much discrimination, casual sexism and sexual harassment which really shouldn't happen in this day and age. I still remember as a teenager when it became a crime for a man to rape his wife (it hadn't been criminal until then) which astounds me as I am only in my 30s now.

Equality and respect are such precious things that we need to continually strive towards, without doing so at the expense of others. Promoting women's rights whilst riding roughshod over men's rights has not sat well with me and it took me a long time, and MN, to realise that action comes from a very vocal few and is not representative of feminism as a whole.

Florence NIghtingale and Marie Curie for their work that has helped make healthcare what it is today.

What are your general feelings about the film? What's your headline review? Please give your star rating from 1 to 5 stars where 5 star is brilliant and 1 star is poor.

I'd give it a 4 - my initial response was 5 all the way, and I felt quite emotional at the end!

Carey Mulligan I felt put in an Oscar-worthy performance and the rest of the cast were pretty flawless.

But.. I am slightly disappointed by the depiction of Maude's peers as almost overwhelmingly indifferent or positively hostile to the idea of women's suffrage and of activism.

I was very glad to see that a working-class woman was the central point of the story, but the reactions and attitudes of the community around her and of Maude's husband didn't really ring true. I think that does a bit of a disservice to the struggles working class women (and men) were active in to improve their conditions and how the people of the East End often pulled together to march, call for change and often prevent the police from getting to activists.

Who you attended the screening with (friend/ mother/ husband etc)? What did they think of the film?

I attended with a friend - they're probably a bit harder to please having worked in the film industry but they were straight onto the issues I described above!

And in terms of the story and themes in the film - what do the Suffragettes mean to you? Who are the women that have most inspired you (suffragette or not)? How different do you think life is for women in the UK now? How far have we come?

Every women from every walk of life who has actively engaged (often against all odds) to improve their and their successors' lives and call for their political, social and property rights inspires me, from Mary Wollestonecraft to the striking London matchgirls, to every working-class woman who just had to try to survive (my own ancestors included!). Our lives in the UK now bear so little resemblance to theirs it is hard to imagine what their everyday lives consisted of. The basic grind and drudgery of existence and cheapness of life itself is a thing of the past for us, but not for many, many women in other countries, where the struggle continues.

Agh, posted too soon - I should add in terms of the Suffragettes themselves that despite all I read in my history studies at school about the Cat and Mouse Act and the treatment of activists nothing prepared me for the depiction on-screen of exactly what they were subject too. It was unbelievably powerful stuff to see on film.

Non-attendee
My inspiring woman is Maya Angelou. A wonderful poet and writer is the least I can say about her.
She did so much as an activist for women, black and civil rights. I've been re reading some of her poetry recently. It's powerful stuff. She continued to give lectures and continue writing well into her eighties, I think.

non attendee: Most inspiring woman, Rosa Luxemburg - an unbelievably sharp intellect, endless compassion and a revolutionary of extraordinary courage.

I don't know if Temple Grandin counts as she is still alive?! She is still a current figure, but I think her legacy is clear already. I really admire how she has carved out a space on her own terms, has overcome sexism and disability discrimination, and has made real change in her chosen field.

non-attendee:

Women who have most inspired me - somewhat topical given GBBO series just finished and not sure if it counts from 'history' but MARY BERRY is a huge inspiration - so kind and positive and yet had to face such battles in her personal life with such a serious illness in her early life and then the tragedy of losing her son when he was a teenager. Pain that no-one should face and yet she is so strong and amazing!

Anne Frank, so selfless.

It was exciting to get tickets and great to see the other MNers. We bumped into some others wandering round outside, trying to find the place, and stuck together until we got there. I would have liked us all to have badges with our MN names (or would I?!). My guest and I both liked being given Suffragette ribbons and have kept them proudly.

For me the film was , just because I'm not sure its what I call a "multi watcher" but occasional. I was wary of the film being seen from the pov of a working class woman and I feared clunky accents etc but no need, it was brilliantly done. I agree with a pp who talked about really feeling involved in the action scenes and getting a real feeling of the panic and fear. The street scenes were well done without obvious effects to erase modern features.

I went with my 12 year old DD who gave it which pleases me greatly as it really meant something to her and she felt very informed, uplifted and inspired. It is such a great film for mothers and daughters to see together. She commented on the unity of the women across classes and feels strongly that women must support each other, not compete.

In some ways it reminded me very much of Made In Dagenham and I was thinking to myself that it was derivative but then I realised that they are both TRUE stories! It illustrated how there were still equality issues in the 70s, although there had been progress, and ditto today. I also think that Sonny should have been played by Daniel Mays, that was his part! So, although it was specifically about The Vote, the other issues of equality, sexism, abuse were very much highlighted and we owe so much to the Suffragettes for starting our journey which still continues.

Women who inspire me include Dame Stephanie Shirley who came to the UK on the Kinder transport, suffered terrible "survivor guilt" and turned it into a desire to succeed and to feel her life was worth saving. This manifested itself in an IT company for women by women started in the 1960s, massive charitable giving and philanthropy, especially for autism as she had a severely autistic son who sadly died young. I also agree with Temple Grandin as mentioned before. I also think Glenda Jackson is quite an inspiration. As well as being an Oscar winning actress, and probably subject to quite some judgment about her looks and shape etc, she had a successful career and then became our local MP and, although I am not a Labour supporter, she was a very good MP who was always approachable and followed up any issues. Just a shame she supports HS2!

We have clearly come a long way BUT, now that my DD is 12, I have become extremely aware of the issues of easy access to porn, potential sexual pressure and huge pressure about looking perfect. in my day we did try to be fashionable and look attractive but it was nothing compared to the perfection that is portrayed everywhere these days. Women seem to be expected to be hairless, have whitened teeth, fake tan, enhanced breasts, false eyelashes, hair extensions! I am hoping for the next cycle of fashion to be relaxed and natural.

I don't like films that end with a list of captions as I feel it is a lazy practice, I feel the film should have ended with some sort of scene of parliament granting votes for women. Captions for the list of countries and dates was fine, but I don't like the "action" being curtailed with a list of what happened. The morph into the old film coverage was good and I think they should have showed the death at the Derby under the King's horse.

Thank you mumsnet, I feel truly grateful to have had opportunity to see this film at the preview on Friday. My review headline? Watch This Film! (because it feels like an important, accessible reference to the time for women and men alike, whilst remaining a gripping, nail-biting watch). I attended with my sister, and we both found it an immensely humbling experience.

I think it's fair to say that the film doesn't shy away from the abject brutality (both physical and psychological) to which women were subjected throughout the fight for emancipation in this country, but this didn't feel remotely gratuitous or over-the-top, but rather an appropriate level of shock value to make you (wince &) 'sit up & take notice'. So for us, we were reminded what a huge debt of gratitude we owe, largely to such women, for their sheer courage and sacrifice for all of us who follow. I always find it a bit odd when an audience applauds a film, but in this case it felt like a very honest outpouring of gratitude, whether to the women whose lives are portrayed in the film, or to the cast (stunning performances btw, Carey Mulligan great, Meryl fabulously poised in her relatively brief scenes, but I also especially like Ann-Marie Duff) & crew for again bringing the story so expertly to the fore. It certainly feels like the film does justice to at least some of the women who lived and fought through the era.

The film, like its protagonists, has guts and I urge everyone who likes great historical/political stories, portrayed with real professionalism and flair, to see this piece of quality film-making.
4.5 from me.

The film was fantastic and so moving. I would definitely give it and my headline review would be "The ending of this film will leave you speechless" - which it definitely did.

I attending the screening with my 15 year old daughter who knows quite a lot about the Suffragettes but I am amazed how many young people do not know about them and do not know what the film is about. My daughter was also extremely impressed by the film.

The Suffragettes definitely did make women think about the differences between their lives and the lives of men but their class made a big difference too as there was a massive divide.

The woman I think is one of the most inspirational is Marie Curie.

A lot of people do not understand what the Suffragettes did for women as it is difficult to comprehend how difficult lives were for them but this film deals with many sensitive themes such as Maude's sexual abuse as a child by her employer and the adoption of her child by a higher class couple partly due to her husband's poverty and also to spite Maude.

Also, even in this film where women are striving for equality, we see inequality among the different classes of women as they campaign for what they believe in.

Thank you so much for letting me see the preview.

A woman I have always admired is Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote a vindication of the rights of woman, arguing that women were not naturally inferior to men but appeared to be because of a lack of education.