The first time I ever heard the term “Suffragette” was while watching Mary Poppins. As you may recall, Mrs. Banks has a song dedicated exclusively to explaining that she’s a “Sister Suffragette”. As a child, I didn’t really understand the importance of what she was singing and, frankly, I would always hope that her song would end soon so I could see Julie Andrews appearing. As I grew older, I could appreciate that song much more and now there is finally an entire movie dedicated to that important movement in England.

Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) works in a laundry in London, in 1913, in cruel conditions, along with many other women. She’s been working there ever since she was a teenager and has a horrible boss who takes advantage of them. Her husband (Ben Whishaw) works there too and earns more than her. She meets Violet Miller (Ann Marie Duff) and learns about the civil disobedience movement by women fighting for their right to vote.

The cast is great, especially Carey Mulligan, Ann Marie Duff and Helena Bonham Carter. Meryl Streep is also in it and she plays Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the Suffragette movie (her character actually existed). Unfortunately, she’s only on screen for five minutes, almost the same lines we see on the trailer.

It’s a sad and realistic film, kind of a punch in the stomach to see what women went through to get their rights and to realize, before the final credits start to roll, that in many countries such rights were acquired way too recently. So we still have a long way to go and this film has perfect timing, since we are in a year when “equal pay for equal work” is being hugely debated… let’s just hope it doesn’t take that long anymore for these rights to be acquired…

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