Women, not props

Almost all the films at the 59th BFI London Film Festival passed the Bechdel test.

A still from The Room

After a week in sunny Busan, South Korea, at the film festival, I flew to London, where I was greeted by leaden October skies. No rest for the wicked; so it was a mad dash from Heathrow to Leicester Square, just in time for Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette , the opening night gala of the 59th BFI London Film Festival.

Gavron returns to her favourite corner of the city, the East End, the vibrant Bangladeshi culture which she captured in Brick Lane (2007). Set mostly in Bethnal Green, Suffragette tells the powerful story of Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan), a laundry worker who is drawn into the suffrage movement led by Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep) and Edith Ellyn (Helena Bonham Carter).

Many of you would have heard of the Bechdel test that examines whether works of fiction have women conversing with each other about topics other than men.

Suffragette obviously passes the test in spades. Another gala at the festival, Nicholas Hytner’s

The Lady in the Van , adapted by Alan Bennett from his own hit,

West End play , is a brilliant film featuring the venerable Maggie Smith as a former ambulance driver, concert pianist and nun who, due to circumstances, is reduced to living in a van parked in a Camden driveway. Smith is well-known for her acerbic and cantankerous performances, and this is one of her best.

Though she does talk a lot, it is mostly to Bennett (Alex Jennings), and not to another woman. She does talk to a social worker and a nurse — not about men — and so, it gets by on the Bechdel front.

Based on Colm Tóibín’s 2009 novel, John Crowley’s Brooklyn , yet another festival gala, features a tour de force from Saoirse Ronan, who is fast becoming one of the great actresses of the age. She does talk a lot about men with her sister Rose (Fiona Glascott) and her landlady Mrs Kehoe (Julie Walters), but she also talks about her job, immigration, and homesickness; so Bechdel pass marks earned.

Stephen Frears’

The Program is a testosterone fest, and literally so, as it is about Lance Armstrong’s dope-fuelled seven Tour de France wins and his subsequent fall from grace.

So, Bechdel was never going to fly. The women in the film barely talk and much less to each other. For example, Armstrong meets his wife at a charity event, gets married to her seconds later, and she promptly disappears from the rest of the film, let alone talk to another woman.

The film of the festival for me was Lenny Abrahamson’s Room , a masterly adaptation by Emma Donoghue of her own Man Booker-nominated 2010 novel. The central conceit is that of a mother and son (Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay) incarcerated in a small shed for years — their only universe.

I can’t really discuss the film any further for fear of spoilers, but let it suffice to say that Larson does talk about many things other than men to a strong woman character later on in the film. So, that’s a yes on Bechdel.