Critic Reviews

In the best picture of 2015, Carey Mulligan is the stoic, long-suffering sweatshop worker radicalized into action.

Morgan’s writing is occasionally pedestrian, but the sweep of the story, the performances and Gavron’s vision make up for it.

The women’s movements are routinely and depressingly ignored by the movies. But Suffragette isn’t just a dutiful corrective, a lid to cover up a gap, but a necessarily distressing exploration of how much a political vanguard will push and endure to set things right — and how fiercely and eagerly a society that’s resistant to change will punish them for it.

Writer Abi Morgan ('Shame', 'The Iron Lady') and director Sarah Gavron's ('Brick Lane') tough, raw, bleak-looking film makes the suffragettes' dilemma feel immediate and real.

It’s written, shot and acted with a hot-blooded urgency that reminds you the struggle it depicts is an ongoing one – and which shakes up this most well-behaved of genres with a surge of civil disobedience.

Suffragette is an admirably modest movie. It does not quite have the grandeur and force of “Selma,” and the script has a few too many glowingly emotive speeches. The final turns of the tale are suspenseful, but also a bit frantic. But it is also stirring and cleareyed — the best kind of history lesson.

Director Sarah Gavron's celebratory chronicle would inspire strong reactions even if it wasn't much of a movie, but the filmmaker compliments her powerful tale with the immediacy of her filmmaking and performances on the same level. It's an unabashed message-driven story that imbues the past with modern power.

The physical abuse and emotional anguish sometimes borders on overkill, but the final outcome is overwhelming.

The film's episodes and attitudes register with searing immediacy while feeling true to their time period.

What makes Suffragette a relevant rabble-rouser, besides Mulligan's fierce, affecting performance, is the way it won't bow to the kind of Hollywood formula that tsk-tsks about how bad it was then — only to wrap everything up with a comfy banner that says, "You've come a long way, baby."