Made in Dagenham

Yesterday my hubby and I went to see this film.

Made in Dagenham is a British film directed by Nigel Cole. The film stars Sally Hawkins (as Rita), Miranda Richardson, Rosamund Pike and Jaime Winstone. The film's theme song, with lyrics by Billy Bragg, is performed by Sandie Shaw, herself a former Dagenham Ford worker.

The film is a dramatisation of the 1968 Ford sewing machinists strike at the Ford Dagenham assembly plant, where female workers walked out in protest against sexual discrimination and the desire for equal pay. The walkout was instrumental in the Equal Pay Act 1970. The women did not actually work at the Dagenham assembly plant but a mile or so away on the other side of the rail tracks at the River Plant (a collection of sheds) on Sammy Williams land near Dagenham Dock Station. The Halewood-based women also joined the strike.

It tells the real life story of the 1968 strike by women workers demanding equal pay at the Ford car plant in Dagenham, a working class town east of London in the United Kingdom. Factory worker Rita O’Grady (Sally Hawkins) emerges as a leader for the female plant workers in a campaign to win them equal pay with their male counterparts.
That may not sound like the most entertaining premise for a film, but Made in Dagenham is full of warmth, humanity, humour and genuine drama. 

One part in the film which was really a key phrase to it all was when Rita and her husband were talking when the strike was at its peak. She was on her way to a big unionists meeting.
He said that she was lucky in that he didn't drink a lot or gamble; he didn't hit her or the kids etc etc
She said "That's just it "
"It shouldn't be a privileged, It should be a right"
And that was the whole reason as to why she was doing what she was doing.


It was a good film although not really entertaining.