Made In Dagenham [DVD]

The film is entertaining enough, but loses much from the focus on fictional individuals who perhaps inevitably end up as stereotypes. The background period setting comes across well; I lived in east London at the time and in brought back many memories. However, the politics - which ought to be in the foreground - suffers both from trying to present it through the medium of specific characters (basically as soap opera) and getting facts wrong such as US bosses refering to all sorts of Trotskyist splinter groups that didn't exist at the time. The portrayals of Harold Wilson and Barbara Castle are well-judged, but I cannot believe the senior ranks of the civil service have ever been populated by such intelectual lightweights as represented here.

I really didn't have any interest in watching this film to be honest, but my boyfriend got it for his Mum for mothers day and I watched it with her and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It doesn't really have much of an intro, you're sort of thrust straight in and it took a little while to gauge the characters and find out what was going on, however, once it developed it was an easy watch, and the characters had good depth. I found myself rooting for the women and hoping it all went their way!! It wasn't too predictable, but saying that I'm only 20 so I wasn't around when this was going on so I'm not sure if that's relevant!

I also really liked the fact they used (I assume!!) original film clips from the time, incorporated throughout the film brilliantly.

To conclude it was a 'nice' easy film to watch which was funny throughout. I would definitely recommend it.

It's a shame it wasn't out long at the cinema!!!

I watched this in a crowded cinema with an audience that enjoyed it very much indeed - there was some applause at the end. It is a very entertaining film - very funny in places, telling a good story, and moving too. All of the cast are first-rate - particularly Sally Hawkins as Rita, the effective strike leader, Bob Hoskins as the sympathetic (and actually extremely cute) union rep. Albert (other, more senior, union leaders are portrayed very unsympathetically almost as cogs in a union-management conspiracy), Geraldine James as Rita's older friend Connie, shop-floor shop steward but much weighed down by the needs of her ill husband and Miranda Richardson as Barbara Castle - her portrayal is something of a tour de force. It tells a story of great courage, as the 187 female machinists at the Dagenham plant battle against union and management intransigence, the doubts and hostility of their menfolk, many of whom are laid off as a result of their action and the intervention of Ford bosses from the States, who try to bully the women into capitulation. In the end, as is well known, they win, more or less, gaining a very substantial pay rise (though not equal pay) and the promise from the government of legislation, which did come into effect about two years later.

The period is visually recreated very effectively (I can remember the time and the events well). There is, perhaps, a little air-brushing, just as often happens in films which are clearly using treasured modern examples of what have become classic cars, for instance (Cortinas, Corsairs and Anglias among them, in this case). The drama is well paced. Throughout, the actors easily gain our sympathy, and that is a major element in the success of the film.

But it's not perfect. Some of the men behave abjectly when confronted by these feisty women (a standard reaction is open-mouthed, inarticulate astonishment, designed usually to raise an easy laugh) - the plant manager at Dagenham, the senor union bosses, in particular Castle's two departmental flunkies - and this is fun but not entirely convincing. The Ford boss from the States is an exception and, I think, a plus in the film. OK, they were unused to women showing muscle and determination in this context, but these were hard, determined, experienced men, not patsies, and I doubt that they would have behaved so much like deflating balloons. If they had, the women's task would have been much easier than it was (the film has quite a strong 'Calendar Girls' feel to it, especially towards the end). In this and other ways, there has to be some suspension of disbelief on behalf of the audience. It could have been a much grittier film. But what it is is good fun, enjoyable and - importantly - a tribute to the real women who did an amazing thing ; and it is very nice to see some of them - the actual women - in the end credits, talking to camera and remembering the remarkable thing that they did.