The story of the Suffragette Movement and the right for the female vote is a fascinating and quite important part of history that is very much overlooked in film and still holds much relevance today.

A large part as to why is the potential problems with how a film would portray it. Despite being really interesting, it is difficult to get the portrayal the Suffragette Movement and the right for the female vote spot on. There is always the danger of heavy-handedness, being too careful, being one-dimensional and being too cold or sentimentalised.

'Suffragette' to me was a compelling film that did more right than it did wrong, but at the same time it does not escape a few of the traps that portraying this subject poses. It is a brave and worthy attempt though, and even though the finished product is flawed 'Suffragette' gets a lot of applause and respect from me for trying.

It doesn't escape the trap of being heavy-handed, with some of the build ups overdone, occasional preachiness in the writing and parts in the music score intrusively orchestrated. While the brutality most likely did happen and it brings a darkness that stops the film from being too much of one tone, parts did jar like with the laundry boss, which agreed did feel like they belonged in another film.

Nor does it escape portraying its characters in a stock and one-dimensional way. Did feel a lot for the women, and found myself inspired by their cause and rooting for them even if they did go the wrong way about it in parts of the film and in history. However, especially the boss and with the sole exception of Steed, the male characters are stock and unsympathetically drawn, found myself really infuriated by Sonny's actions as well and found him generally a placid personality. There are a few real life characters intersected here, which was interesting but appeared too briefly, while they made an impression David Lloyd George and Emmeline Pankhurst were reduced to cameo roles.

However, it is very handsomely and evocatively mounted in period detail, being suitably naturalistic and sombre. The cinematography, with the hand-held technique, has been criticised for being excessive and lacking focus, it didn't bother me that much and thought it gave a real and appropriate sense of frenzy, claustrophobia and fear. Apart from the odd intrusive part, the music is rousing yet understated. Much of the direction gives clarity to the story and a sense of pace and the film always looks great.

Much of the writing is fine too, some heavy-handedness here as well as parts that are a bit emotionally cold and too careful but the main and familiar events are handled powerfully, sincerely and thoughtfully. The storytelling, a vast majority of the time, is spirit-rousing, heart-stopping, moving and inspiring, the ending was really quite powerful.

Carey Mulligan is particularly magnificent of the uniformly impressive cast, and Brendan Gleeson and Anne-Marie Duff are not far behind. Meryl Streep's appearance is brief but very memorable, while Helena Bonham Carter brings a wonderful feistiness to the ringleader of the group. Ben Whishaw, on the other hand, is a little dull as Sonny, though the way the character is written deserves a large part of the blame here, and the laundry boss character is too much of a stock pantomime villain-like character.

Overall, brave, worthy and largely successful if flawed telling of a fascinating, important and relevant piece of history, that has been overlooked. 7/10 Bethany Cox

When a film about the passage of the Voting Rights was made the Martin Luther King character said that even with the Civil Rights act of 1964 was passed, black people needed this lest elected officials with a vested interest in the segregation system water down and neutered the equality promised in the civil rights act. I think possibly the women realized that because the focus of their struggle was first and foremost on the voting franchise.

Suffragette takes a serious look at the women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom which was progressing parallel with the movement in the USA. The times of Great Britain just prior to her entrance into World War I are accurately portrayed. Several historical figures are in this drama including Emmeline Pankhurst the Susan B. Anthony of Great Britain played by American Meryl Streep.

But the story of the movement is encapsulated in an Oscar worthy performance by Carey Mulligan. She plays a lower class laundry worker who gets dragged into the movement and gets an awakening that she should not accept her inferior status in society. Her husband Ben Whishaw is your ordinary working class man of the time who simply accepts male superiority in society as his due. She gets sexually molested by her supervisor at the laundry and Whishaw is mad at her for not just sucking it up. Her suffrage activities get her arrested and Whishaw feels he has to separate from her and he takes custody of their child. He has the right and she has none in that society. This fact in life in those times and this incident illustrates in Suffragette why the women in the movement worked as hard as they did.

The film climaxes with the famous death of Emily Davison at the English Derby at Epsom Downs. That incident was recorded in the silent newsreels of the day, the newsreel in fact was created at that time. Ms.Davison played by Natalie Press threw herself in front of the oncoming horses and was killed. It was her way of making the statement. Knowing that was to happen in watching the film I was still jolted by the way it was done and how gallantly Davison sacrifices herself. She gives her last words to the fictional character Mulligan plays.

Better than any other film and there are few enough film portrayals of the Suffrage movement I hope that Suffragette gets due recognition by the Academy in giving out Oscars. This film should be mandatory viewing in schools for anyone to understand the women's movement.

Years ago the BBC did a series SHOULDER TO SHOULDER (1974) that told the story of the origins and development of the Women's Movement in Britain, with special attention paid to the WSPU (Women's Social and Political Union).

Sarah Gavron's film revisits the same territory as it tells the story of the gradual awakening of Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) as she sets her marriage and family aside in favor of the Women's Movement. The crux of the action centers around the death of Emily Wilding Davison (Natalie Press) at the 1913 Derby, as she stepped out in front of the horses finishing the race and was crushed to death.

In view of the film's earnestness of purpose, it seems a shame to criticize it. However there are certain jarring elements that do stand out. Abi Morgan's screenplay seems uncertain whether to focus on the political or the familial elements. Maud's husband Sonny (Ben Whishaw) is just too placid a personality to become truly angry about his wife's decision to embrace the Suffagette cause, and the emotional scene where he decides to let his son George (Adam Michael Dodd) to for adoption is straight out of KRAMER VS. KRAMER.

Director Gavron seems too concerned with showing tight close-ups of Mulligan's face as she struggles her way through a dead-end job at the local laundry. Hence we get little sense of the slave-like existence pursued by most working-class women at that time. Meryl Streep, in the cameo of role of Emmeline Pankhurst, simply reprises her Margaret Thatcher turn in THE IRON LADY (2011).

On the other hand, the film does have its moments, especially when Maud goes to the Houses of Parliament and ends up talking about her life in front of David Lloyd George (Adrian Schiller). We get the sense of how much courage it takes to speak up in front of a group of unsympathetic middle-aged men. Helena Bonham Carter is quite surprisingly good as Edith Ellyn, especially in a sequence where she and her co- conspirators plan to blow up a private property constructed for Lloyd George's personal pleasure. The way Edith grinds up the gunpowder reveals her inherent anger at the ways in which women are treated.

The ending is also powerful, as Gavron fades out from the film into faded black-and-white films of Emily Davison's actual funeral taken in 1913. Through this technique we are made aware of the film's importance to an understanding of British social history.