Women's Right to Equal Pay

“Made In Dagenham” opened in theaters December 17 and I was glad to get to see a preview screening of it. This is an excellently executed telling of the story of a piece of history involving women's rights. In 1968, at the Ford motor plant in Dagenham England, the women working as machinists in the plant, were reclassified as unskilled workers and assessed a substantial pay cut. Working under sweatshop conditions cutting, sewing and assembling the upholstery and seat covers for the automobiles made there, they felt that they were performing skilled labour and entitled to wages equal to the male employees. Supported and encouraged by their union rep (played wonderfully by Bob Hoskins); the 187 female employees walked off the job. The strike brought the plant's operations to a standstill and led to the women meeting with Barbara Castle who was the Secretary of State for Employment in the Cabinet of Harold Wilson's ruling Labour party. Miranda Richardson delivers a great performance in this role. The movie is not only an historically accurate slice of the 60's , but it is also very entertaining; with a nice mix of humour and drama, supported with nostalgic music,authentic costumes, wonderful cinematography and great locations.

The star of the movie is Rita, a woman with no background in politics or union actions, who is invited to join the negotiations, and becomes the key difference maker with her honest, heartfelt speech touching everyone. Sally Hawkins stands out in this role and deserves to receive Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for her performance. Sally starred in Mike Leigh's “Happy-Go-Lucky”, one of my favorite movies of 2008. In this movie she played Poppy, a woman so amazingly happy and insanely cheerful, that you almost wanted to give her a slap upside the head. How can anyone be that cheery? She played a North London primary school teacher who was so exasperatingly optimistic that when in the movie she comes out of a shop to find her bicycle has been taken, she utters the line “Oh,and I didn't even get to say goodbye”. She then decides she needs to take driving lessons and hires as her instructor Scott, who turns out to be as dour, bitter pessimistic and tightly wound as Poppy is upbeat and joyful. It is so nice to see Sally Hawkins turn out a dramatic performance in “Made In Dagenham”, as powerful and well executed as she did in her comedic output in “Happy-Go-Lucky”.

Go see this tale of 'girl power' and you will come away uplifted and glad of your trip to the theater.

Make sure you stay for the credits,which have comments from some of the real life women from the Dagenham plant in 1968.I'm sure that when this movie is released to DVD they will include even more features on the actual history of the people and events portrayed in the movie.