Made In Dagenham: Review

British cinema has been separated by two styles of movie: the gangster film and the feel good comedy. The gangster movie, thanks to Guy Ritchie, is now a tired, cliched genre, usually nasty and starring Danny Dyer. The feel good comedy, thanks to films like The Full Monty and Calender Girls, are a little more successful. This latest entry, from the director of the aforementioned Calender Girls, is a light, enjoyable and somewhat timely look at the striking workforce of the 60s.

Dagenham 1968, and nearly 190 women workers at the Ford car plant have been in the middle of negotiations about their pay. They get exactly the same amount as the unskilled men workers and they believe that making seat covers for the new models is a skill and demand the right amount of money for their work. Ordinary worker Rita is thrown into a meeting with the management and union boss, and demands that they get the same amount as the men or they strike. Of course in a time when equality wasn't rife, the bosses say no, and so the women walk out. The question is, how will their action affect not only their male counterparts, but their own personal family lives?

Nigel Cole's film follows the same routes as his former comedy drama, with women being the pivotal characters and a real event is the heart of the story. The only difference this time, is that where the characters in Calender Girls are all fleshed out, only a couple this time are really focused on, leaving some of the others coming across as either cliched or wafer thin.

Sally Hawkins impresses as the naive Rita who is propelled into the limelight as the head of the striking team. She covers all the emotional gambits with aplomb and you cannot help but sympathise with her plight, and even when it starts affecting her relationship with husband Daniel Mays, you are there with her.

Nice to see Bob Hoskins back on our screens as the supporter of the women. He still oozes charm and wit and is always very watchable. Miranda Richardson appears as politician Barbara Castle, and her brief scenes are some of the more fun ones, especially when she's stripping down her young co-workers.

The trouble with the film is that some areas are brushed over far to quickly. Rosamund Pike's role of the woman who helps getting a teacher removed from a school for bullying is brushed over, especially when it is revealed who she really is, seems redundant, which is a pity. Other characters don't develop and so they become like onlookers.

It's still an enormously entertaining movie, just that you can see how this could have been up there with its predecessors. It will be a huge hit, but it won't stay in the memory as long as those stripping steel workers or stripping women's institute members have.