For the most part, it’s fair to say that neither labour disputes nor the process by which laws are created lend themselves terribly well to the medium of film. Made in Dagenham tells an entertaining endearing story of striking female factory workers, but from the clear effort to make a neglected chapter of history more box-office friendly.
Directed by Nigel Cole (Calendar Girls) and written by Billy Ivory, Made in Dagenham stars Sally Hawkins as Rita O’Grady, the catalyst for the 1968 Ford Dagenham strike by 187 sewing machinists that eventually lead to the passage of the Equal Pay Act. Working in challenging conditions for long hours, the women at the plant are infuriated when management changes their place on the pay scale, classifying their work as ‘unskilled.’ Led by Rita, the women take on their corporate foes, fickle union bosses, an increasingly sour and cash-strapped local community, and eventually the government itself to demand equal pay for women. Throughout, Rita’s struggle is echoed by that of Barbara Castle (Miranda Richardson) in the male-dominated political sphere, who eventually takes up the workers’ cause.
The best thing about Made in Dagenham is the opportunity it provides to watch talented actors and actresses chew the scenery. Sally Hawkins is the very definition of the ‘mouse that roared’ as Rita, and great fun to watch. Miranda Richardson is (predictably) captivating as Barbara Castle and has some of the film’s choicest dialogue; her ‘fiery redhead’ speech will make you grin and cower at the same time. Rosamund Pike plays Lisa Hopkins, a middle-class housewife who supports the machinists’ cause and her relationship with Rita feels gawky, touching and real. Bob Hoskins is squeezably endearing as the women’s curmudgeonly union rep.
Unfortunately, many of the film’s smaller characters are less intriguingly developed. Jaime Winstone and Andrea Riseborough aren’t given enough to do, and I found myself wanting to see more of each of them. Also, for a film that argues so stridently against stereotyping women, Made in Dagenham is surprisingly reliant on stereotypes about men, portraying them as either over-the-top villains or incompetent fools. In the former category, we have the American executive from Ford Headquarters in Detroit, Robert Tooley (Richard Schiff), who is so nefarious it’s surprising there aren’t stalagmites and a talking mirror in his office. The film’s straw men are lead by Daniel Mays, who plays Rita’s dim-witted husband, Eddie. Most of his time is spent doing the kind of ‘dad can’t make toast’ shtick that is pretty much what I imagine every single episode of King of Queens to be like. When he faces off against Hawkins, he clearly never stands a chance, but its fun to watch her take him to pieces nonetheless.
It seems Cole and Ivory could not decide if they wanted to make Made in Dagenham a comedy that happens to make a strong case for women’s rights or a more sober dramatic picture about female workers’ struggles. They try to make the film both at once, and the two elements don’t mesh together particularly well. On the one hand, the film evokes the free-spiritedness of the swinging sixties, and for a while things are all giggles and beehives. Though we’re told the conditions in the factory are intolerable, watching the women at their machines in bras and knickers – gossiping, laughing, and catcalling any luckless man who happens to pass through – it seems kind of fun, like the prison in Chicago. As the film goes on, however, people are topping themselves and Rita’s bravely holding back tears in every scene. Then, the ending is simply too upbeat, making it seem as though discrimination against women in the workplace all but ended by 1970.
While the opportunity to watch Hawkins and Richardson chew the scenery alone is worth the cost of admission, I nevertheless found I wanted to like Made in Dagenham more than I actually did. At the end of the film, interspersed with the credits, there are clips of interviews with the actual strikers. These heroic women set in motion meaningful, lasting change, and I left the theatre wanting to hear more of their story, and less of this film’s version.
