How this fall will shake out in terms of the 2015 Oscar race is largely still a mystery, but few films have as much clout behind them heading into the second half of the year as Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette. With its absolutely loaded cast and thrilling, true-history story, Suffragette is basically Oscar bait at its finest. And with An Education‘s Carey Mulligan, Les Miserables‘ Helena Bonham Carter and Nowhere Boy‘s Ann-Marie Duff in the cast, not to mention Meryl Streep, this is shaping up to be one formidable awards contender.
Now, we’ve got our first look at the film, with an image (above) that shows, from left to right, Duff, Mulligan and Bonham Carter’s characters raising their voices as part of a feminist protest. What makes Suffragette particularly interesting is that it doesn’t center on the feminist movement as a whole; rather, it zeroes in on a small group of foot soldiers of the movement who turn to violence when peaceful protest doesn’t have the impact they want.
Abi Morgan (Shame, The Iron Lady) wrote the script, so we’re expecting a searing, strongly written dramatic thriller. In Gavron’s capable hands, and with this cast, Suffragette will almost certainly be something spectacular. In addition to the aforementioned actresses, the film stars Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson, Romola Garai and Samuel West. Excitingly, Whishaw and Garai recently toplined The Hour, a terrific BBC series about an investigative news program in Cold War-era England, which was also scripted by Morgan. Watching those two share the screen again will surely be a total pleasure.
No release date has been announced, though the film will likely play at some fall or winter festivals so that it can qualify for awards attention. The only date it has set now is a U.K. release on January 16th, 2015, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it open stateside in December. Check out the new plot synopsis for Suffragette below, and let us know whether or not you’re as excited for this movie as we are.
SUFFRAGETTE is a thrilling drama that tracks the story of the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State. These women were not primarily from the genteel educated classes, they were working women who had seen peaceful protest achieve nothing. Radicalized and turning to violence as the only route to change, they were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality – their jobs, their homes, their children and their lives. MAUD was one such foot soldier. The story of her fight for dignity is as gripping and visceral as any thriller, it is also heart-breaking and inspirational.
