Iron Jawed Angels (2004)

Admirable film.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The acting in this movie is really good.

In 1912, Alice Paul and her close friend, Lucy have one matter on their minds, getting American women the right to vote. They are very familiar with the famous suffragettes who came before them, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Nevertheless, being younger than some of the feminists of their day, they have some new ideas and strategies. Their views do not often sit well with the older ladies of the struggle, including Carrie Chapman Catt. When Alice finds it impossible to work out their disagreements, she starts her own group. Even a handsome newspaperman can not sway her from her focus, although they remain friends. From staging D.C. parades to picketing the Wilson White House to being thrown in jail on false charges, Alice and Lucy mean business. Will they see their fondest dream come true? All women in American owe a great debt of thanks to these two brave women and their fellow suffragettes, one that can never be repaid, and this wonderful film tells their story with care and beauty. First, the cast is superlative, with Swank and O'Connor leading the way, followed by nice turns by such actresses as Vera Farminga, Julia Ormond, Molly Parker, Huston, and Brooke Smith, among others. No, the viewer is not always comfortable with Swank's character, Alice Paul, who is so committed to her cause that she shuts everything else out of her life. By contrast, O'Connor is a marvel, for her character is likewise dedicated but filled with regret for the husband and children she always wanted. The costumes are lovely and true, the scenery is beautiful and the entire production breathes classiness. Yet, it is the story that is a heart grabber and should send everyone to the library to learn more about the suffragette's trials. Wilson, a respected president in the annals of history, comes off as a stubborn man who resents the ladies' picket lines and allows them to be imprisoned, even when he knows they have not broken any laws. Once in jail, the conditions are dire and horrifying, to say the least, and any woman might wonder if she could endure the same for the right to vote. In such light, this wonderful movie is a must see for women everywhere and their partners. It was, after all, less than one hundred years ago that those American women finally got that basic human right, suffrage, and, after a viewing, no female will ever take this matter nonchalantly again.

"Iron Jawed Angels" only has a couple positives going for it. The story seems pretty true to what actually happened, and the actors were fairly competent. Other than that, this is an unnecessarily "hipper" version of women fighting for their rights to vote.Several women begin fighting against President Woodrow Wilson to earn the right to vote. They fight tooth and nail, and they suffer (hence women suffrage), and they go through much pain, similar to what happens to the audience as they watch this. Of course, we all know how it ends. This could have been a powerful film, but it was too hip. Many techniques used constantly were time lapse photography, slow motion, switch to black and white, contemporary music and bad synthesizer music. The newer music does not fit with the time period, and the synthesizer music is horrible sounding and nonstop, even in scenes that need no music. The actors do what they can with an okay script, but awful director. It could've been good, but ended up quite a mess.My rating: * 1/2 out of ****. 120 mins. Contains nudity and violence.

I've been studying the fight for women's voting rights in U.S. History class and the real story is much more interesting than what's portrayed here. For the sake of creating tension in Alice Paul's story the Angelica Houston character (Carrie Chapman Catt) is vilified and reduced from shades of gray to black and white, and President Woodrow Wilson (who is so responsible for so many good things in our lives today) is portrayed as a one-note cardboard character and anti-women. It's true that the force-feeding of Alice Paul and her friends and their tactics got press and forced Wilson to act at that particular time, but the tide was progressing anyway -- in large part due to the efforts of Carrie Chapman Catt (vilified here) and Susan B. Anthony and their contemporaries, long before Alice Paul came on the scene.Carrie Chapman Catt and Woodrow Wilson were not the villains at all in reality, and yet here they're portrayed as such. That's absolutely criminal in my mind, and at the very least highly irresponsible.The film also has a VERY annoying soundtrack -- faux Madonna-like -- and nonsense image manipulation to comtemporize the story (in ten years this will seem absolutely amateurish). If the director trusted her own work and the truth of what was being portrayed she wouldn't have felt she needed to "jazz it up" by resorting to these tactics.This music is totally out of context, jarring, and fails to capture or support the mood of the era the film is set in. Besides that the director uses WAY too many film class 101 "oh wouldn't this be neat" techniques (like the shots of one tray after another in rapid succession to show Alice Paul isn't eating in jail). This is absolutely amateurish and annoying.The love story was also glommed on to this without regard for the facts. I asked my much-admired history teacher today what she thought of the film and she wasn't a fan either. This was like watching children play acting with a script very dumbed down for the masses. There was no depth to the characterizations, no shades of gray, no powerful silences, no subtext -- nothing.The period is fascinating and the cause of women's rights deserves to be told in a vehicle far better than this, but again my point is it is absolutely wrong to vilify good people.The period is fascinating and the cause of women's rights deserves to be told in a vehicle far better than this -- one that doesn't twist the facts to the degree this piece of garbage does. (If you don't believe me go pick up a history book and read.)

I just showed this movie in my American History class,and I can see it made a huge impact on my students. People do not always like to talk about the unpleasant things in our past, and I like to show both sides of an issue. I had them do a reflection after viewing certain scenes(the parade, the jail, and an overall feeling to name a few) I was amazed at the responses, even from the "tough" boys. They were moved and shocked as was I. True enough, there is a Hollywood spin, but it is also a powerful film. I can not say enough positive things about this film. The film depicts women and the struggle for the vote. One of the reasons I showed the movie was my history book had a one liner when buried in the end of the WWI chapter when the amendment was passed, so I figured I would address the issue.