Les dames de Dagenham

Made in Dagenham hit the screen and shows that a not-exceedingly-mega- budget film can be the best of the year.

The factually based story of how the Dagenham women brought Ford to a standstill makes for surprising film material.But it works .The film is authentic to the late 60s down to the tea cups and kitchen cabinets , the clothes and make up.

Miranda Richardson as Barbara Castle steals the film,Bob Hoskins,Geraldine James are all excellent in their roles.

Stay in for the credits though, that part of it had me reaching for the tissues .

This is a film which will have you shaking with anger one minute and crying the next.Highly recommended.

From the director NIGEL COLE (Calendar Girls, Saving Grace), MADE IN DAGENHAM tells the tale of the 187 women that worked at the Ford Motor companies Dagenham factory - and their struggle to earn equal rights and pay with the 55,000 male workers at the factory.

Set in 1968, the economy was used to frequent union uprisings and strikes – but this was the first time that it was the women upholsterers who sewed car seat covers that took the initiative … after being "down-graded" to a non-skilled status – the women rose as one to walk out, in an action that brought them into direct conflict with the management, their own unions and their own husbands … eventually brought the Ford motor company to it's knees

Many laughed at the women's actions … until their strength of feeling … and reality set in … forcing the unions and the management to take increasingly desperate measures to get the women back to work … as factory production ground to a halt.

Rita O'Grady (played admirably by SALLY HAWKINS), a shy, pleasant worker working in sweat shop conditions, found her voice when asked to stand up for the women's views, and gradually became more and more empowered as the rest of the women stood behind her in a crusade that became synonymous with equal rights

The story climax's nicely in an emotional showdown, as the situation finally comes to a head and the chief participants (Ford, the Government, the Women, the unions and the men workers) all realise that things have gone too far … and none of them can back down.

As well as Sally Hawkins, there are some strong performances by other members of the cast – specifically, Bob Hoskins as Albert, Miranda Richardson as an exuberant Barbra Castle, the lovely Rosamund Pike as Lisa, Geraldine James as Connie, Kenneth Cranham as Monty (Unions) and Richard Schiff as Robert Tooley (Ford).

The music, costumes and the locations set up the tone of the times nicely, and the direction is solid throughout. The camera work is able, and is interspersed with footage from the actual era giving it more gravitas.

In a phrase, it's … "Girl Power – union style"

Social drama and comedy can be a tough balancing act. In telling the story of how a small group of women working in a factory in the late 1960s began a minor industrial dispute that rapidly escalated into a spearhead movement for gender equality in employment, Made in Dagenham plays it mostly for drama and keeps the laughs low-key and naturalistic. A closer kin to say, Billy Elliot, than to The Full Monty.

Sally Hawkins, best known so far for her breakout role in Happy Go Lucky, becomes the accidental spokesperson in this dispute, and delivers a beautifully nuanced performance of a woman who is angry and frustrated at the injustices of her situation, but has never felt able to voice them until now. In her quiet, sometimes faltering delivery we can sense the well of deep-seated conviction that has been struggling to find its voice. However, it is in the relationships of the women that the film finds its most compelling moments. Few movies these days even attempt, and very rarely succeed, in painting such an honest and heartfelt picture of female relationships and interaction.

By comparison to the core group, some of the surrounding roles (Bob Hoskins magnificently excepted) are rather more coarsely sketched. A pair of dopey civil servants in particular seem to be intended (although certainly not succeeding) as comedy sidekicks and feel rather out of place.

However the story is told in such an understated manner, easy on the grandstanding, and rather working its way under the skin with warmth and honesty; that after being little more than mildly entertained for much of the running time, I was genuinely caught off guard by how I was suddenly seething with anger at the unfairness of their plight, or elated with each little success. In a tale with huge nationwide consequences, it's the personal victories that count the most.

A fine recreation of the major historic step for equal pay for women. Dramatic but with plenty of laughs in the workplace and the biased tradition of different levels politics. Also a glimpse at the class differences in modern 1968 England and the soundtrack instantly took me back to when I was 20. This should be mandatory watching for management till they really understand it. Also mandatory watching for the rest of us to remind us that fighting for a cause is difficult but can succeed. Very well written and acted, I see a lot of movies and most need more spend on shortcomings in the story/script and less on overpaid actors, I really could not find fault in "Made In Dagenham".

The movie gets to convey the atmosphere of those months in 1968, where 187 women joined together and went on a strike to ask for equal salaries to men, and better conditions of work. We as viewers really feel the cohesion, the solidarity, as well as the tensions of this group. Never pedantic, or too dramatically committed, the movie gets to make the public, mainly the female one, reflect upon the hard struggle women had to face before getting some basic rights, when still actual and necessary is the reflection about today's condition of female workers, when some kind of discrimination is still to be faced. However, the movie proceeds with a soft and entertaining pace, maybe at some points too entertaining, the sparkling character of Rita O'Grady herself was invented in order to make the story more cinematographically involving. No doubt however the cast makes a difference, the actresses offer single heart-felt interpretations, in the same way as the choral shots show intensity and strong emotion.