User reviews

Modernization of history. Don't even call it history, call it what it is! A rewrite that should disgust even those who know nothing about the subject of "woman suffrage." It would be obvious to a 12 year old that this is not how things were in 1912. Hillary Swank as Alice Paul who was in real life a woman rights leader going against all odds fighting for woman's right to vote. In this HBO version 2004, she's jamming herself in a bathtub to a score of rap music? The crazy camera work is nothing that we haven't seen before and just flat out inappropriate for this subject. I hate 2004! I want to live in the 20's and 30's where happiness was sharing a box of cracker jacks and America was only divided by gender and color. Two years ago HBO gave us Band of Brothers. If it weren't for the actual 101st HERO'S giving us first hand accounts during the film, at this time I would be seriously doubting the validity of that series which I consider one of the greatest ever made.

I'm sick. HBO should have left this one to the history channel and take much more careful steps on their next attempt to rewrite history. Iron Jawed Angels should be scratched from the HBO playlist and forgotten. 1/10

I knew when I saw the woman's naked back scrawled with Votes For Women in what appeared to be red lipstick that this would be yet another stinker from HBO. We know this network is capable of good efforts, such as Band of Brothers, but more often than not, they produce anachronistic potboilers masquerading as history. While some of these characters lived, others were created to suit the mawkish tendencies of the producer, writer and director. I could find no evidence of the Leightons in the history sources I consulted. I didn't do an exhaustive search, but their story also felt contrived. Suffragettes in general were single-minded, serious women, not pouty little twits who mooned about on swings with leaves swirling all over them while hip-hop blasted. What was up with that hideous soundtrack? I taught college for years, and my students often amazed me with their capacity to appreciate stories from other eras. Hip-hop has no place in a historical film. No wonder American students suffer from brain atrophy. If you never challenge people, then they cannot learn and grow. When I watched the brilliant Shoulder to Shoulder (the British tale of their suffrage movement) during the 70s, I never expected to hear Led Zeppelin or the Who in the soundtrack. I wouldn't have wanted to. Period music is necessary to create mood and tone. Likewise, those disgusting costumes, which were just plain wrong. The sets looked anachronistic, as well, no less as soundstagey as all get out. Whenever the characters went outside to stand in the cold, no condensation emerged with their breaths. I can't abide cheap, phony productions, and that is what we too often get in these American pieces. Many of the songs were rather lascivious, as were the gratuitous scenes of the homely Swank (she is a decent actress, but she is hardly attractive) masturbating in the bathtub, complete with too many shots of her over-collagened lips. Ben Weissman, the so-called cartoonist/love interest, was a fictional creation. This sort of fictionalized love story in the midst of a biopic seems nothing short of insulting to the viewers, as well as to the historical women who suffered greatly for their cause. With just a few exceptions, women were only just emerging as public femme-fatales at this point, but many of these songs had a slutty tone. In addition to these flaws, the film definitely dragged in many places. Watch Shoulder to Shoulder instead. American suffragettes deserve better treatment than this aimless mess.

The struggles of the first wave american feminists turned into a garbage soap-opera stinker that wants really hard to be passed as a clone of Sex and the City. If you have any and I mean ANY respect for the historical movement this movie pretends to portray and all the suffering the suffragist women took upon themselves for their rightful stances stay away in any possible manner from this crap and watch Suffragette instead. Hands down one of the most insulting movies I've ever seen in my whole life.

I forced to watch this movie in school, for school, and write a two-page paper on it. It was horrible. funny, but horrible. The only part of this movie i enjoyed was the amazing jokes about Hellen Keller. "She's deaf and blind. If she can find it, so can you." IT'S A CLASSIC. While I approve the message this movie tries to get out, I don't approve of the method used to portray it. Is it just me, or did I see two women making out in a montage about talking to senators? Very confusing. And there's a little girl playing chess in the intro? What's up with that? seriously. But if you're one of the people first in line to see "Snakes on a Plane," you'd probably LOVE this movie. best quote in this movie: "I'm not feeding anybody's babies." I think that defines this movie more than anything else. "Iron-Jawed Angels" gets one star from me.