AOL made a big deal this morning out of debuting what I'll assume is the U.S. trailer for Sarah Gavron's SUFFRAGETTE, a dramatization of the "angry period" of the Votes For Women movement in turn of the century Britain (in response to increased police aggression, segments within the movement turned from peaceful demonstration to physical resistance and anarachist-style acts of violence/vandalism including bombings) with Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep and Helena Bonham Carter.
Not a bad clip, but it managed to undercut what's supposed to be the aggressive "get mad and break shit" hook of the piece (we're in SELMA "Hey! These supposedly more 'respectable' early days of social activism were way more similar to modernity than you've been told" territory) but smothering it's back-half with a slowed-down version of "Landslide" - tonally wrong, and a serious mood killer.
Fortunately, the film is also opening the BFI London Film Festival; and a separate trailer announcing that appearance goes for a more sweeping "action drama" tone overall. Check it out:
Now that's more like it! Film is scheduled for an October 23rd release stateside, but will probably turn up on the festival circuit building steam for awards season before that.
TRIVIA: Meryl Streep is playing Emmeline Pankhurst, leader/founder of the "militant" Women's Social and Political Union. I'm wondering if the film will include "The Amazons," a contingent of female bodyguards maintained by the WSPU to protect "fugitive" suffragettes temporarily released from prison for health reasons from being re-arrested (and to go hand-to-hand with police and male counter-rioters) who carried concealed Indian Clubs as weapons and were trained in Jiu-Jitsu by Western martial-arts pioneer Edith Margaret Garrud.
