Made in Dagenham

Overview

Anything set in the 1960s will draw the inevitable comparison with Mad Men, so let's get it done with in the first sentence: Made in Dagenham shares none of the glamour of that particular zeitgeist-definer, although it does have a charm all of its own. The movie charts the days when if you wanted to stay cool on the factory floor, you stripped down to your drawers, if you wanted to make an announcement, you stood on a chair, and if you wanted to get paid the same amount as a man, you faced derision. It's May 28, 1968, and Rita O'Grady (Sally Hawkins from Happy Go Lucky) is about to get pushed into the sexy, man's world of picketing, negotiating, speechifying and out-quoting Marx in the fight to get equal pay for Britain's women.

It's all based on real events in which a group of female sewing machinists began a Ford factory-specific strike to be recognised as skilled workers that turned into a nationwide fight to pass legislation guaranteeing equal pay for equal work. Within a few years, similar laws were being made around the world. To get to that point, Rita and her friends have to outmanoeuvre the Ford bosses (including The West Wing's Richard Schiff) and some easily bought union leaders and get financially strained male and female workers on their side. Fortunately, Rita finds allies across both gender (Bob Hoskins' Albert, her union mentor) and class (Rosamund Pike's Lisa, the privileged but trapped wife of a Ford manager) and potentially in Secretary of State Barbara Castle (Miranda Richardson).

Nigel Cole's picture captures the drab honesty of British working-class life in the tradition of Monty Python, although it's nicely pastel-rendered and floral-printed to allow for plenty of nostalgia, comedy and some well-played sentimentality. The movie has a great cast of characters (and actors to fill them) and contains touching moments of solidarity that will leave you longing to stand shoulder to shoulder with something. It's a subject worth documenting and a document worth watching.