Movie Review: Made in Dagenham - Striking a blow for women

posted by Women's Media Nation
Tuesday, November 16, 2010 at 5:14pm CST

I had the chance to attend a screening of Made in Dagenham last night at the Raleigh Studios and recommend it to anyone with a social conscience who might have trouble remembering that women didn't always have equal rights.

In fact the film should be required viewing for every high school history class.

It's also been 40 years since the Parliament in Great Britain enacted legislation that made it illegal to pay women less than men in England for the same work.

That equal pay-for-women movement began in the town of Dagenham - and is the subject of the very funny, based-on-fact but thoroughly uplifting film by Nigel Cole (Calendar Girls).

Sally Hawkins plays Rita O'Grady, a worker in the seat-cover division of Dagenham's Ford plant in 1968. She and her co-workers are upset about their new contract, which classifies them as unskilled workers, while the men are classified as skilled and, as a result, are better paid. What follows is a David & Goliath story with Ford playing the big bully threatening to move their business out of Britain if the women aren't kept under control

There is already strong Oscar buzz (for good reason) around Hawkins’ absorbing performance as Rita, the unlikely strike leader who finds her strength and voice defending her fellow workers. In another great role, Miranda Richardson plays a very tart Barbara Castle, the Secretary of State, who the prime minister refers to in the film as “the best man in his cabinet.”

Made in Dagenham reminds the audience that the history of equal rights for women is still being written. I want my daughters to see it; I want their friends to see it and I think everyone that finds themselves in the audience will walk away with renewed appreciation for our social system. The film opens in NY and LA November 19 (and rolls out across the country later).

~js