Suffragette (2015) * 1/2

Directed by:  Sarah Gavron

Starring:  Carey Mulligan, Ben Whishaw, Helena Bonham-Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Meryl Streep, Brendan Gleeson, Finbar Lynch

The payoff of Suffragette occurs in the film's epilogue, where a list of the dates certain countries granted women the right to vote scrolls on the screen.     The movie itself is curiously muted.     It never rises to any significant emotional level, even when the heroine loses her family in pursuit of the cause of women's suffrage in the early 1910s England.     This is because the heroine, a factory worker named Maud (Mulligan), is simply not an interesting person.     Her decision to join the controversial cause and break the law to further women's voting rights is not convincing.     We don't believe she joins because of her conscience or her heart, but because the script dictated she should join right about now.

Maud (Mulligan) is the heroine of the movie and it turns out she is a fictional character.     She works in a dirty, grimy factory for a dirty, grimy boss who sexually assaults certain members of the female workforce when he is not barking orders.    Swell guy.    Even back in the time before the reformation of employment laws, is it wise for a boss to rape his employees?     This factory looks, feels, and sounds like all of the others depicted during this time period in other films.    The place is in shambles and the boss is always a creepy, deplorable male who verbally abuses his workers.     

Soon, Maud becomes unwittingly wrapped up in the women's suffrage movement and then grows into a more active participant when she speaks in front of the Prime Minister about her workplace conditions.     Nothing changes and the Prime Minister retreats from his promise to advance the cause of women's suffrage.     Maud's "outrage" is hardly that.    She acts as if she had to prodded into being upset.    Hovering around the edges of this campaign is police detective Steed (Gleeson), who arrests various members of the cause at different times, but feels sympathy for Maud and others like her.     He questions her wisdom in throwing away her job and family to support the cause.     He is torn between his duty and his personal beliefs.    Gleeson gives the best performance in the movie and represents the gray areas of the movement.

I also enjoyed Bonham-Carter as the on-the-ground leader of the cause, Edith Ellyn, who runs secret meetings and plots civil disobedience on behalf of the hiding Emmeline Pankhurst (Streep), who is public enemy number one to the male-dominated British establishment.     She provides a conviction lacking in Maud.    Since Maud is fictional anyway, why not just focus the movie on Edith and scrap Maud altogether?    Why do we have to wait for Maud to catch up to everyone else who has spent years sacrificing for the cause?

Streep does appear as Pankhurst for about two minutes total in the entire film.     The fact that Streep is figured prominently on the movie's poster is misleading.    Labeling her appearance a cameo would be stretching the truth.     She gives a loud speech from her balcony asking women to continue fighting for the cause and sacrifice themselves, while she is then whisked away back to seclusion and safety.     Her eventual imprisonment after taking responsibility for setting the Prime Minister's summer home on fire takes place entirely off screen     Pankhurst makes the sacrifice she asks of her followers and we don't even get to see it.

There is another subplot involving Maud's wussy husband Sonny (Whishaw),    He wants Maud to stay home, be a mother, and not rock the boat.     He works in the same factory and keeps his head down as the boss terrorizes everyone.     If anyone should want to rock the boat, it's him.    Contrast that with Edith's husband Hugh (Lynch), who fully participates in and supports his wife's efforts.     He has much more depth than Sonny, who is a one-dimensional twit with a singular purpose of being an intolerant creep.    Wouldn't it have been more interesting to see Sonny have a change of heart also?

Suffragette seems to be escalating toward a dramatic, moving payoff which never develops.     There is a final gesture which turns one of the suffragettes into a martyr on the world stage, but even then I found myself questioning the woman's sanity instead of being moved by her sacrifice.     The movie is suddenly over and you wonder what all of that was about.     It turns out women in England were granted limited suffrage and then full suffrage a decade later.     This was what I sat through over two hours for?     To be told about a small victory for women's rights (not shown) and then a larger one down the road.     The best parts of Suffragette all occur off screen.