Iron Jawed Angels is a 2004 Americanhistorical drama film directed byKatja von Garnier. The film starsHilary Swank as suffragist leaderAlice Paul,Frances O'Connor as activistLucy Burns,Julia Ormond asInez Milholland, andAnjelica Huston asCarrie Chapman Catt. It received critical acclaim after the film premiered at the 2004Sundance Film Festival.^[1]

Iron Jawed Angels
DVD cover
Directed by	Katja von Garnier
Written by	Sally Robinson Eugenia Bostwick-Singer Raymond Singer Jennifer Friedes
Produced by	James Bigwood Laura McCorkindale Denise Pinckley
Starring	Hilary Swank Frances O'Connor Julia Ormond Anjelica Huston
Cinematography	Robbie Greenberg
Edited by	Hans Funck
Music by	Reinhold Heil Johnny Klimek
Production companies	HBO Films Blue Dominion Productions Bluebird House Spring Creek Productions
Distributed by	HBO Films
Release dates	January 16, 2004 (2004-01-16) (Sundance) February 15, 2004 (2004-02-15) (United States)
Running time	125 minutes
Country	United States
Languages	English, Ukrainian

The film focuses on theAmerican women's suffrage movement during the 1910s and follows women's suffrage leaders Alice Paul and Lucy Burns as they use peaceful and effectivenonviolent strategies, tactics, and dialogues to revolutionize the American feminist movement to grant women the right to vote. The film was released in the United States on February 15, 2004.

Alice Paul andLucy Burns return from England where they met while participating in theWomen's Social and Political Union started by radical suffragette leaderEmmeline Pankhurst and led by her daughterChristabel Pankhurst. The pair presents a plan to theNational American Woman's Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to campaign directly in Washington D.C. for national voting rights for women. They find that their ideas are too forceful for the established suffragist leaders in the U.S., particularlyCarrie Chapman Catt, but they are allowed to lead the NAWSA Congressional Committee in D.C. They start by organizing the 1913Woman Suffrage Procession on the eve of PresidentWoodrow Wilson's inauguration.

While soliciting donations at an art gallery, Paul convinces labor lawyerInez Milholland to lead the parade on a white horse. Paul also meets a Washington newspaper political cartoonist, Ben Weissman (a fictional character), and there are hints of romantic overtones. In a fictional scene, Paul tries to explain toIda B. Wells why she wants African American women to march in the back of the parade in order to not anger southern Democrats and activists, but Wells refuses, and she comes out of the crowd to join a white group during the middle of the parade.^[a] After disagreements over fundraising, Paul and Burns are forced out of the NAWSA, and they found theNational Woman's Party (NWP) to support their approach. Alice Paul briefly explores a romantic relationship with Ben Weissman.

Further conflicts within the movement are portrayed as NAWSA leaders criticize NWP tactics, such as protesting against Wilson, and their sustained picketing outside of the White House in theSilent Sentinels action. Relations between the American government and the NWP protesters also intensify, as many women are arrested for their actions and charged with "obstructing traffic."

The arrested women are sent to theOccoquan Workhouse for 60-day terms. Despiteabusive and terrorizing treatment, Paul and other women undertake ahunger strike, during which paid guardsforce-feed them milk and raw eggs. The suffragists are blocked from seeing visitors or lawyers, until (fictional)U.S. Senator Tom Leighton visits his wife Emily, one of the imprisoned women. News of their treatment leaks to the media after Emily secretly passes a letter to her husband during his visit. Paul, Burns, and the other women are released.

Pressure continues to be put on President Wilson as the NAWSA joins in the NWP call for passage of theNineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Wilson finally accedes to the pressure rather than be called out in the international press for fighting for democracy in Europe while denying democracy's benefits to half of the U.S. population. During the amendment's ratification,Harry T. Burn, a member of the Tennessee legislature, receives a telegram from his mother at the last minute, changes his vote, and the amendment passes.

The film derives its title from Massachusetts RepresentativeJoseph Walsh, who in 1917 opposed the creation of a committee to deal with women's suffrage. Walsh thought the creation of a committee would be yielding to "the nagging of iron-jawed angels" and referred to theSilent Sentinels as "bewildered, deluded creatures with short skirts and short hair."^[3] The use of iron holding open the jaws of the women being force-fed after the Silent Sentinel arrests and hunger strike is also a plot point in the film.

The fictional characters in the film are Ben Weissman; his child; Emily Leighton; and Senator Tom Leighton.^[6][7]

Film criticRichard Roeper gave the film a positive review, writing, "Iron Jawed Angels is an important history lesson told in a fresh, and blazing fashion."^[8] Scott Faundas ofVariety gave the film a negative review, writing, "HBO's starry suffragette drama,Iron Jawed Angels, latches on to a worthy historical subject and then hopes noble intentions will be enough to carry the day. Alas, there's no such luck in this talky, melodramatic overview of the dawn of equal rights for women in America. Gussied up with a comically anachronistic use of period music on the soundtrack and flashy,MTV-style montage sequences, pic misguidedly strives – but ultimately fails – to belie its instincts as an assembly-line movie-of-the-week."^[9]

Robert Pardi ofTV Guide gave a mixed review, "All the elements for a splendid film about the early days of the women's rights are in place, but director Katja von Garnier's use of distracting cinematic trickery and jarringly modern music meshes poorly with the period setting... Blessed with a flawless physical production, von Garnier distorts her epic tale with music that belongs on aLilith Fair tour; it sometimes feels as though she and her writers conceived the fight for women's suffrage as a 1912 version ofSex and the City. Only when the anachronisms finally subside in the film's final third is the moving core allowed to shine."^[10]

Historians have been critical about the movie for several reasons. DirectorKatja von Garnier created a 21st-century soundtrack and remade the early 20th-century suffragists into "third-wave" feminists that would be more familiar to modern audiences.^[11] The depiction of Alice Paul's sexuality in the film had no basis in historic fact; Paul was single-minded in her devotion to winning suffrage for women.^[12] There is no evidence she had a sexually intimate relationship with anyone, male or female.^[13] The movie even creates a fictional character to play a love interest for Paul, cartoonist Ben Weissman. This suggests that Paul needed the assistance of a newspaperman to get publicity for her activist campaign, when in reality, Paul was a highly talented publicist in her own right.^[11]

The film also portrayed Paul welcoming Ida B. Wells-Barnett with a smile when Wells-Barnett joined the procession from the mass of spectators along the route. This never happened in reality, and was perhaps the director's attempt to soften the event's racist aspect.^[11] Paul marched in the college section in her cap and gown, not with the Illinois delegation that Wells-Barnett joined.^[14] Wells-Barnett marched with two white Illinois women who had supported her right to march with the state delegation:Belle Squire andVirginia Brooks.^[15]

The film was nominated for five awards at56th Primetime Emmy Awards, none of which were won; three awards at the62nd Golden Globe Awards, winning one; and two awards at the9th Golden Satellite Awards, winning one.Anjelica Huston won theGolden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film and theSatellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for her performance in the film.

• Jailed for Freedom (1920 book)
• Shoulder to Shoulder (1974 series)
• Suffragette (2015 film)
• Suffs (2022 musical)

• Official website
• Iron Jawed Angels atIMDb