Militants in miniskirts...
Director: Nigel Cole
Cast: Sally Hawkins, Miranda Richardson, Geraldine James, Bob Hoskins, Rosamund Pike, Andrea Riseborough, Jaime Winstone, Daniel Mays, Roger Lloyd Pack
Rating: (M)
Three stars
On the face of it, Made In Dagenham (Rialto) seems a sure-fire winner.
A bunch of feisty working-class British gals go on strike and directly bring about equal-pay legalisation.
It is set in 1968, so everyone is wearing miniskirts and even, one bold lass, hot pants.
What is not to love? Well, that is the problem.
It is so busy being lovable and showing that women are all the same under the skin (we all can bond over a shared love of really cute dresses) that it forgets to give us any grit.
Sure, people get a bit testy with each other, but there is nothing that cannot be solved by a nice cup of tea or even a sherry.
I spent half the movie waiting for the drama to turn up and the other half waiting for the laughs.
Whatever drama and laughs did arrive were totally perfunctory, which was a missed opportunity on both counts.
Made In Dagenham is based on a true story of the 187 women workers at the Ford plant in Dagenham who went on strike over having their work classed as unskilled, and the film ends with snippets of interviews with the real women, which only serves to make you wish they had had the courage to make a documentary about it instead of trying to make the next Calendar Girls.
Best thing: The actors are so much better than the material and they give it their all, so that they just about pull it off by pluck alone.
Worst thing: By not making up its mind whether to be serious or frivolous, it ends up being a bit stodgy and dull.
See it with: A trade unionist. After the Hobbit debacle they will be desperate for an industrial relations story with a happy ending.
- By Christine Powley
