DVD | Iron Jawed Angels

Rating: M - Contains Adult Themes.
Duration: 123 mins.
Genre: Drama.
Actors: Anjelica Huston, Frances O'Connor, Patrick Dempsey, Hilary Swank, Julia Ormond, Molly Parker.
Release Date: Available now.

Iron Jawed Angels is a movie I got because I though my wife would be interested in seeing it. By the time we got round to actually watching it, I really wasn’t in the mood. So instead of giving it my full attention, my mind was elsewhere, and I was making trips to the kitchen for food without pausing the movie.

But then, somewhere in the middle of the movie, the story of these underdogs, second generation suffragettes garnered my rapt attention. Not only were Alice Paul and Lucy Burns fighting against an unjust and outdated law, they were also up against the established suffragette movement, who didn’t like their way of doing things.

But unlike their colleagues who had been playing the game for a while now, Paul and Burns were ready to take the battle to the streets, put their own lives on the line and not give up.

In the end, Iron Jawed Angels turned out to be an engrossing tale that keeps building momentum until the predictable (well, we all know that women got the vote, right?) ending.

Food for thought
Unlike many protests today, Paul and Burns organised a peaceful protest that continued unabated day in day out for well over a year. Protesters today only seem committed enough for a single march, do we lack the commitment to our ideals that previous generations had, or is there nothing left that is really worth fighting for?