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.

The first scene begins with admirably brawny arms glistening under a rising sun, and sets the tone for the surprisingly raunchy ‘Tamara Drewe’. The film is based on Posy Simmonds’ comic strip serial, published weekly in The Guardian, which is, in turn, loosely based on ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’. Indeed, there is no better word than ‘mad’ to describe this highly enjoyable yet slightly disturbing production. It seems at times as if the director, Stephen Frears (‘Chéri’, ‘The Queen’), had a pile of Country Life magazines in one hand and a bursting bag of LSD in the other. However, this mixture has worked well for him, particularly in the way he has managed to retain visual elements of the comic strip, such as splitting the screen when two people are on the phone, letting characters have hazy flashbacks (you can almost imagine the thought-bubbles) and, sometimes, adding in a bout of graphic violence just for good measure.

The film is set in Ewedown, a countryside backwater, and follows several characters, all dissatisfied in one way or another, whose lives are brought together by the return of Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton) to her home-town. Once a posh girl known only for her massive nose, she has come back, fully rhinoplastied and a columnist to boot, to sell her mother’s house. Her first appearance amongst the villagers creates shock and awe; Beth Hardiment (Tamsin Greig), proprietor of a farm and Writers’ Retreat, and long-suffering wife of Nicholas Hardiment (Roger Allam), a writer, comments: ‘She’s poured herself into those shorts, I hope they don’t give her thrush!’ True, they are possibly the tiniest hot-pants ever worn onscreen, and calculated to catch the attention of the forever unfaithful Nicholas, with whom the audience infers Tamara has had flirtations in her youth.

From here, it begins to transpire that Tamara Drewe is actually not a particularly nice character – although Arterton herself is very hard to dislike. She reencounters her first love, Andy Cobb (Luke Evans, surely destined to become a star), only to ask him to redecorate her house (incidentally his ancestral home, which he had been forced to sell to the Drewes), before conducting affairs with several men, married or otherwise. She becomes engaged to a member of a rock band, Ben Sergeant, played by a fantastically convincing Dominic Cooper, which sends a local celebrity-obsessed fifteen year-old, Jody, into fits of jealous rage. Jody, helped by the fact that Tamara always leaves her house-keys handily under a flowerpot, soon begins to cause an inconceivable amount of mischief, which eventually results in a bovine stampede: the breaking off of Tamara’s engagement and the disgusting breakage of her plastic nose (this is the graphic violence part). She is wonderfully cast and deliciously unlikeable as a bored and utterly inconsiderate brat of a teenager.

The most likeable character of the film, on the other hand, excepting the honest Andy, must be Beth Hardiment, who provides the film with a constant undercurrent of real sadness and sympathy, as she patiently looks after the egos and stomachs of sensitive wannabe writers, whilst trying to forget about the fragile state of her marriage to the suave and pompous Nicholas. His insatiable appetite for younger women and his lame alibis break down her confidence bit by bit, as she examines and re-examines her middle-aged body and finds both herself and everything she does for him – from filling in tax returns to typing up his manuscripts – wanting and worthless. Their dysfunctional marriage constitutes the most biting and painful part of this effectively middle-class satire.

Nonetheless, after enduring all these trials and tribulations, the audience is granted a happy, albeit slightly rushed, ending. It is a shame that after meandering along at a leisurely pace, the film finishes with such a hasty tying up of ends, and it is less satisfying for it. Still, it remains a very entertaining way to spend a rainy afternoon, as good performances and cinematography more than make up for a rather thin plot – but what else would you expect from a comic strip?

For the next jewel in the crown of his new career, ‘Smoking Aces’ actor turned ‘Gone Baby Gone’ director Ben Affleck has gone for the holy trinity: co-writing, directing and acting in his latest film ‘The Town’. This is clearly no mean feat: there can only be so many Clint Eastwoods in Hollywood. It is certainly a risk for Affleck, who has seen his credibility plummet in the past; he has only recently got back a respectable reputation, and for that reason the attention is fixed, possibly unfairly, on Affleck and what he brings to the movie.

As with ‘Gone Baby Gone’, ‘The Town’ is set in Boston, this time in Charlestown, which we are told produces more bank robbers and criminals than anywhere else. It is difficult to see how Affleck feels about his home turf of Massachusetts; on the one hand it seems to inspire a lot of his films, but on the other he never shows it in a particularly flattering light. Here, Affleck plays Doug MacRay, a local hero who, along with his best friend Jem, played by Jeremy Renner, and two other nameless crooks, robs banks and robs them very well. The opening scene shows the group skilfully and professionally steal from a bank in the heart of Boston. They wear frightening masks, wield heavy-duty artillery, microwave security tapes and bleach all traces of their DNA; these guys know what they are doing. But when one of the bank workers pushes the silent alarm, the crew are forced to improvise and take bank manager Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) as a hostage. This leaves her as a loose end: Doug volunteers to execute some surveillance of her to see if she tells the cops anything. The watching soon turns into a conversation and then a relationship, which has Doug questioning whether he has to stay in Charlestown or try and break out again.

The cast is uniformally excellent, with each actor pulling their own weight. The two already well established actors, Affleck and Hall, give great performances; Hall pulls off a convincing American accent while Affleck shows he suits the role of the rugged criminal more than the smooth faced romcom lead. New actors Jeremy Renner and Blake Lively also hold their own, with Renner expertly playing an unhinged thug while Lively goes through an especially impressive transformation in her move to the big screen. From the glamorous Upper-East sider Serena van der Woodsen in the hit US show ‘Gossip Girl’, Blake Lively is transformed into the cheap and thoroughly undesirable Krista Coughlin. There are of course bad guys, and, being a crime film, they appear on both sides of the law. There is the sinister florist, Pete Postlethwaite, who runs the crime racket in Charlestown, while Jon Hamm, best known from ‘Mad Men’, plays FBI agent Andrew Fawley. Both men show little compassion, which instantly, albeit unsubtly, draws the audience into backing Doug.

There are enough excellently executed chase scenes and gun fights to break up the drama between Affleck and Hall. However, on top of this, what makes the film stand out is the intimate, insider’s knowledge Affleck has for this area of Boston; he knows why these men do what they do and how they get roped into it. He understands how these are the types of men whose fathers were also criminals and toast to friends who are in prison. He also takes time to show why none of these men have any money after a $90,000 bank raid. It transpires that, of course, this money can’t be saved or hidden away, but must instead be squandered quickly on gambling, drugs and girls so that the police can’t trace anything. It may be true that the story lacks originality, but having the heart and insight of Affleck puts the film above the crime dramas Guy Ritchie usually regurgitates. The heart also shows Affleck’s true feelings to Boston, which is one of love and acceptance of both its good and bad qualities.

However, there are some aspects of the film that some members of the audience may find difficult to swallow. The plot is frankly nothing that hasn’t been seen before, and Affleck fails to fully develop many of the minor characters. In addition, some might not feel that Doug MacKay is a character worthy of our forgiveness, as some of his actions could be seen as token gestures rather than ones of general remorse.

Yet regardless of these criticisms, they cannot scupper this excellent film. With this skilfully made crime flick, Affleck has shown that ‘Gone Baby Gone’ was no fluke – it would, however, be nice to see him branch out to another genre, or at the very least a different city. Nonetheless, Affleck’s career is rising like a phoenix out of the ashes of bad choices, and with more films like ‘The Town’ it seems destined to soar even higher still with critical acclaim.

The blonde-haired and blue-eyed Lissie Maurus started stealing hearts last year after the release of her EP Why You Runnin’. Since then, a number of successful online covers and on-stage duets with Ellie Goulding have caused the American’s fan base to grow considerably. But whereas Ellie is a soft, sparkling sequin of a singer, Lissie is a true Midwestern country girl, with mud on her jeans and grass in her hair. Illinois-born, she’s two parts Stevie Nicks to one part Sheryl Crowe, with a dash of Johnny Cash, and topped off with a smattering of freckles and a whole lot of tequila.

But there’s more to her than just cornfields and pickup trucks. She also cites Snoop Dogg and musicals such as Blood Brothers and Miss Saigon as influences. It’s perhaps no surprise then that that she seems a little unsure about how to define her music, describing it as ‘indie-folk-rock-soulful-heartfelt kind of music’. That’s probably the best way to categorize her debut album, Catching A Tiger.

From the first clattering notes of “Record Collector” to the final throbbing remnants of the beautiful “Oh Mississippi”, Lissie’s raw, passionate enthusiasm pours out and fills your ears and hearts. She leaps eagerly into the album, saturating the first three songs with emotion and scattering crashing crescendos. We’re granted a brief respite with the gentle “Bully”, before Lissie pulls us back onto the dance floor with the foot-stomping, thigh-slapping, “Little Lovin'”.

The album starts to lose some of its initial momentum after the halfway mark; “Loosen The Knot” ties itself up in a mess of bland and rather generic-sounding guitar, while “Cuckoo” struggles to get off the ground. But thankfully it’s rescued by Lissie’s soaring vocals, which shine through the dreamy “Everywhere I Go”, reflect off the waters of “Oh Mississippi”, and accompany her as she rides off into the sunset.

What would feminist theorists say to the neurological research which shows that it takes the male brain only 0.2 sec to classify a woman as ‘hot’? No doubt a recapitulation of the never-ending Nature versus Nurture debate. But the 2008 study entitled ‘The Chronoarchitecture of Human Sexual Desire: A High-Density Electrical Mapping Study’ reveals that the ‘hot-or-not’ decision is made before the brain is anywhere close to consciously processing sexual desirability.

Scientific studies like this, and the questions they prompt about gender, neuroscience and society,are the driving force behind Louann Brizendine’s most recent book ‘The Male Brain’, the timely sequel to her 2006 international bestseller ‘The Female Brain’. Both books map the neurological, chemical and developmental changes that accompany the phases of life in men and women, and gives the scientific evidence behind such well-known phenomena as the ‘biological clock’ in women, and the lesser-known and ‘sympathetic pregnancy’ or Couvade syndrome in men.

Brizendine is undeniably qualified to produce popular reading on the scientific basis behind sex and gender; her resume includes a degree in neurobiology from UC Berkeley, a doctorate in medicine from Yale University and a residency in psychiatry at Harvard. Her book deftly and accessibly blends research in neurology, biochemistry and psychology to explain some of the most puzzling aspects of masculinity, ranging from the adolescent’s bizarre obsession with computer games to the ‘sugar-daddy’ phenomenon of older men marrying much younger women. According to Brizendine, there is a neurochemical basis to these and other male stereotypes and she has Nature papers cited to prove it.

While any self-respecting scientist will balk at some of Brizendine’s conclusions based on research that does not presume to attribute causation to its findings, her books fill a literary niche in applying science to gendered relationships in easily digestible prose. Brizendine leaves the question of how much of this gendered behavior is innate and how much is learned unanswered but ultimately suggests that with a deeper understanding of the male brain, ‘we can create more realistic expectations for boys and men’.

While few quick reads are as informative for one’s daily life as Brizendine’s books, it would be most interesting to see how contemporary feminist theorists negotiate the scientific research underpinning her claims. For example, gender theorist Judith Butler has been asserting the performative nature of gender since the 1980s, to the extent that her undergraduate lecture students at UC Berkeley, could not tell whether she was a man or a woman), suggesting that every day one must choose whether to be a man or a woman. How can the fact that the area of the brain which governs sexual pursuit is 2.5 times larger in men than in women, be reconciled with Butler’s championing of androgyny? Perhaps this disjuncture in scholarship is symptomatic of some larger impasse between the sciences and the humanities. However, Brizendine has placed the ball in the feminists’ court. It is now time for them to look into some neuroscience themselves before lobbing it back.