Engaging Dagenham an Exuberant Reminder
Timing, as we all know, is everything, and it couldn’t be any better time than now to release a movie like Made in Dagenham. Inspired and based on the 1968 strike by less than 200 women at a Ford Motor Company production plant in Dagenham, England, the film tells an inspired and inspiring tale that also manage to parallel current economic events going on around the globe. It is a story of doing what it right and demanding what is fair, and in modern world where corporations seem to have forgotten both of those things it is refreshing to be reminded what a small few can accomplish when prodded into action.
Miranda Richardson and Sally Hawkins in Made in Dagenham © Sony Pictures Classics
Not that Rita O’Grady (Sally Hawkins) or any of the other women working making seat covers for Ford automobiles at their rundown and dilapidated plant new they were changing the world when they decided to make their voices heard. They were just tired. Tired of being forced to work overtime. Tired of being paid far less than their male counterparts. Tired of working in substandard, and maybe even dangerous, conditions. Tired of being continually belittled and bullied by a company they’d given their hearts and souls to.
So they spoke up. First staging a 24-hour walkout, then purring on a full-on strike when management continued to turn a deaf ear to their concerns thinking the women wouldn’t have the guts for a real fight. Even when the male-dominated Union at large tries its best to turn against them, even when Ford sends hardened executive Robert Tooley (Richard Schiff) across the pond to squash them into submission, even when their own husbands find themselves out of work when there are no seat covers to build finished cars, O’Grady and her crew stick to their guns, ultimately proving their metal and gaining support from places – like the office of Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity Barbara Castle (Miranda Richardson) – they never could have anticipated.
I can’t say this movie goes in any new or surprising directions. It’s the British version of Norma Rae, Hawkins filling in for Sally Field and delivering a performance that is every bit as spunky, intelligent, fiery and downright delightful as her fellow actress’ was in that 1979 Martin Ritt directed favorite. O’Grady fundamentally changed things both in Great Britain as well as many countries around the globe (but sadly, and tellingly, not here in the United States), achieving equal pay for women and gaining a balanced playing field no one at the time ever thought possible.
But it doesn’t matter that the outcome is a forgone conclusion because getting there is just so much darn fun I doubt anyone who watches this one will remotely care. Filled with splendid performances (including Bob Hoskins as a sly coworker and Union official who gently prods the women into action, and Geraldine James as Rita’s best friend and closest ally who’s home life is as much of a battlefield as her one at work is), confidently directed by Nigel Cole (Calendar Girls) and intelligently scripted by William Ivory this is a movie that gets just about everything right. It made me laugh, got me to cry and had me leaving the theatre with a smile on my face the size of the British Isles themselves. This was as wonderful time as I’d had in ages, and when it was over the only thing I really wanted to do was to ask the projectionist if they’d kindly be willing to run the thing again.
So what’s happened between then and now? Why have we allowed corporations to run amok and turn our economic lives into a disaster? Where are the Rita O’Grady’s of today who are willing to stand up and make a case for what is both right and fair? They’re out there, and hopefully their voices will be heard. Until then, Made in Dagenham is a marvelous reminder of what a precious few can achieve, showing us that commitment, fortitude and determination can transform the world for the better and that even those with the meekest demeanor can have a lioness hidden within just waiting for the opportunity to roar.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
Additional Links
