Mrs. America is a granular and semi-realistic political series principally about the Equal Rights Amendment bill and its empowerment of female issue groups to enter into the two-sided American political system. Even though I think you could certainly call it biased towards the democratic side of thinking, it does a great deal to humanise all participants and doesn't shy away from the very real splintering and compromising that goes into "fighting for what you believe" in political reality.
The real draw is the extraordinary Cate Blanchett who puts in a stunningly mannered performance as conservative titan Phyllis Schlafly, it's such an incredibly magnetic act that you genuinely feel her absence when she's not on screen. Liberal firebrands Friedan & Abzug are played with glorious panache by Tracey Ullman and Margo Martindale respectively, although there are very few weak links present. Each episode has a specific theme and the penultimate one "Houston" which shows Sarah Paulson's Alice Macray in a drug-induced revelatory odyssey through the 1977 National Women's Conference may be my TV highlight of the year.
What Mrs. America sacrifices in realism it makes up for in spades with strong characters, some very distinctive filmic photography and some extraordinarily well-judged storytelling without necessarily sugar-coating the tangle of compromises necessary when going from being a grassroots political activist to entering the mainstream.
The real draw is the extraordinary Cate Blanchett who puts in a stunningly mannered performance as conservative titan Phyllis Schlafly, it's such an incredibly magnetic act that you genuinely feel her absence when she's not on screen. Liberal firebrands Friedan & Abzug are played with glorious panache by Tracey Ullman and Margo Martindale respectively, although there are very few weak links present. Each episode has a specific theme and the penultimate one "Houston" which shows Sarah Paulson's Alice Macray in a drug-induced revelatory odyssey through the 1977 National Women's Conference may be my TV highlight of the year.
What Mrs. America sacrifices in realism it makes up for in spades with strong characters, some very distinctive filmic photography and some extraordinarily well-judged storytelling without necessarily sugar-coating the tangle of compromises necessary when going from being a grassroots political activist to entering the mainstream.