Solid performances, great period design, and a historical event worth telling. Unfortunately, the script is clichéd, giving us two stock characters -- the Radicalized Innocent and the Worldly Wise Secret Policeman -- who go through their expected paces. You could probably tell the same story today with a European Muslim in the Carey Mulligan role.
Getting involved in Suffragette activism upends the life of Mulligan's character, Maud. It cuts her off from her work, her husband, her child and her community, but it introduces her to a wider world of ideas and of people of a higher social class who she would never otherwise have known. It would have been fascinating to learn what became of Maud in her new milieu, what kind of job she found, and what kind of new life she built with her old one in ruins. In particular, it would have been interesting to see how she dealt with the new opportunities for English women created by World War I. That would have been an empowerment story to get involved in. But the movie just drops Maud with a historical footnote about when women got the vote in the UK and various other countries.
Getting involved in Suffragette activism upends the life of Mulligan's character, Maud. It cuts her off from her work, her husband, her child and her community, but it introduces her to a wider world of ideas and of people of a higher social class who she would never otherwise have known. It would have been fascinating to learn what became of Maud in her new milieu, what kind of job she found, and what kind of new life she built with her old one in ruins. In particular, it would have been interesting to see how she dealt with the new opportunities for English women created by World War I. That would have been an empowerment story to get involved in. But the movie just drops Maud with a historical footnote about when women got the vote in the UK and various other countries.