Iron Jawed Angels (2004)

I interpreted a segment of this made-for-TV film a few years ago in a U.S. history class, and it definitely caught my attention.  The “so many movies, so little time” factor kept it off my much-watch list for far too long, but I finally got around to this affecting suffragist drama.

Set during the last stretch of the women’s suffrage movement, from 1912 to 1920, Iron Jawed Angels follows Alice Paul and other young suffragists in their tireless quest to secure the vote for women nationwide.  While the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA,) the major suffrage organization at the time, is focused on state-by-state victories, Alice and her cohorts aim for a constitutional amendment.  The young suffragists are more radical than their NAWSA counterparts; they stage marches, they picket outside the White House, they print inflammatory literature, and they get arrested as political prisoners.  At the center of all their efforts is that shining dream, the full democratic rights they deserve as American citizens.

This mostly-accurate film depicts Alice and her fellow suffragists as bold, determined women who aren’t afraid to fly in the face of societal expectations.  I love that Alice wholly bypasses the debate over what women will do with the vote – temperance, birth control, etc. – and the issue of whether or not women “deserve” suffrage.  She rightly argues that it’s not about women being more “virtuous” than men or that they’ll use their vote more conscientiously.  It’s about their rights as Americans; suffrage should be a mark of equality, not something that has to be earned.  I also really like that the film shows the strong relationships between the suffragists, especially Alice and her crusader-in-arms, Lucy Burns.  Both are 100% dedicated to the fight, but they’re not eternally dour, humorless agitators, either.  They take brief moments of respite to talk fashion or go to the movies, and while they address many naysayers with eloquent, righteous anger, there are other times when they simply have to laugh at the small-mindedness they encounter.  When Alice is downhearted, Lucy’s the one to reignite her devotion to the fight, and although they’re kept separate after their arrests, they lean on one another even when they can’t see each other.

As Alice and Lucy, Hilary Swank and Frances O’Connor (who played Fanny Price opposite Jonny Lee Miller in Mansfield Park) lead the film with spirit and grit.  Other featured suffragists are played by Laura Fraser (Door from Neverwhere!,) Julia Ormond (from Smilla’s Sense of Snow,) Vera Farmiga (who I always know best from Dummy,) and Molly Parker (Jackie on House of Cards,) who’s especially good as the wife of an unsympathetic senator, a woman who’s finally stopped swallowing the Kool-Aid about her capabilities and realizes how needlessly subservient she’s been kept her entire life.

One last thing:  I know it’s an HBO production and they were probably desperate to find some way to take advantage of the pay-cable factor, but is it really necessary to have multiple scenes of suffragists bathing?  I mean, seriously – is there any other film about a social change movement that stages more than one important conversation in the tub?  Kind of tacky, HBO.

Warnings

Some violence (including rough depictions of force-feeding during a hunger strike,) thematic elements, and sensuality (including suggested masturbation.)