An angry resolve runs through Suffragette, a straightforward stance on common sense and justice that is integral to this story. One could theorise that this stems from hindsight - a short glance at the short list of nations in which equal voting rights are available to women shoots that theory down. One could theorise that this stems from a female perspective, Suffragette having been written, produced and directed by women - a short glance at the film itself, at its depiction of a fight for equality that not all are equally invested in, and that theory gets shot down too. The baton blows and the force feeding sting as hard as they do because 2015's audience knows too well that this fight for equality is not yet over, or that much of this audience doesn't know nearly well enough. Suffragette is a polemic, and on that ground it's difficult to find fault with: it is earnest, embittered but determined, its sense of justice informing its stance on these critical historical events. As this straightforwardness extends to Abi Morgan's stance on writing and Sarah Gavron's on directing, one feels a less stringent sting that these events deserve a more nuanced approach, or a more accurate one, just as one feels the power behind the message that their overly didactic methods carry. That resolve that runs through the film seems resolved to overcome the structural mediocrity and the visual inadequacy, in service of justice. A great cause such as this perhaps does deserve greater treatment, but what's greatest of all is that it is being treated on film. An angry resolve 100+ years in the running. May it never give up the fight.
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