When the vote was truly rocked

HBO’s “Iron Jawed Angels,” a biopic about American suffragettes Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, whose efforts ultimately won American women the vote in 1920, tells the story of two of the most obscure pivotal figures in American history. For marginal historical figures, Paul and Burns had an enormous impact on American democracy. For civil rights revolutionaries, they are unaccountably overlooked.

So, where have they been all of our lives? Unlike their better-known predecessors, Paul and Burns landed in prison for their unladylike political activism, on charges so specious they could make shoplifting a candy bar look like a bank heist. “Iron Jawed Angels” hauls the ladies out of oblivion, dusts off their legacy and, setting off more mental exclamation points than period pieces normally do, gets in some serious jabs at contemporary politicians -- especially their penchant for using war as a handy political deflector -- by dressing them up in funny hats.

Directed by German filmmaker Katja von Garnier (“Bandits”) and starring Hilary Swank as Paul and Frances O’Connor as Burns, the film begins in the years leading up to the United States’ entry into World War I, when student activists Paul and Burns returned home from studying in England and began what would prove to be a fitful association with the National American Woman Suffrage Assn. Headed by Carrie Chapman Catt (Anjelica Huston) and Anna Howard Shaw (Lois Smith), who had worked with venerable suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the late 1800s, NAWSA supported a state-by-state approach to women’s suffrage and favored a conciliatory approach with the president.

Paul and Burns, meanwhile, wanted nothing less than a constitutional amendment, and Von Garnier underscored that audacity by giving the movie a modern feel, complete with a pop, ethereal Lilith Fair-style musical backdrop. Swank and O’Connor play Paul and Burns -- whose militant political activism was distasteful to Catt and other established members of the movement -- as a couple of saucy friends on an excellent adventure; standing up for their rights while sticking it to the man. At times, the film’s jewel tones and dreamy, cross-fading montages give it a sort of fairy-tale music video quality, but ultimately the visual update feels fusty. The irreverent, youthful optimism of the pair’s mission is reflected in their kicky, eclectic style.

For all the righteous political indignation Paul’s and Burns’ demands aroused, one would think they were asking for a federal law recognizing gay marriage.

Still, with Catt’s reluctant blessing, the two friends took over the committee in Washington, D.C., where they quickly organized a protest parade with the help of labor lawyer Inez Milholland (Julia Ormond), whose image atop a white horse became the movement’s symbol. The parade was scheduled to coincide with the arrival of Woodrow Wilson for his 1913 presidential inauguration. When angry male hecklers attacked the suffragists, the parade developed into a riot, and Wilson, who had always been lukewarm on women’s suffrage, was upstaged and embarrassed.

Eventually, Paul’s followers split from NAWSA. The National Woman’s Party, as depicted by Von Garnier, was the ACT UP of its time. Their continued picketing and criticism of Wilson, especially after the U.S. entered the war, landed them in prison.

Paul, Burns and nearly 100 other suffragists were sentenced to six months in prison for obstructing foot traffic on the sidewalk outside the White House. Their mistreatment there, especially the force-feeding of Paul after she went on a hunger strike, eventually swung public opinion in favor of the suffragettes.

Garnier describes Paul and Burns as the female Butch and Sundance, presumably because not many rebellious girl-buddy movie pairings come to mind. Romy and Michele don’t exactly do them justice, though their playful wardrobes and crazy hats contrasted sharply with the belle epoque hulls of their predecessors. Swank plays Paul as though she were trying to keep her from unfurling like a dried flower, rigid and fragile at once. Her square jaw and fixed gaze add an intensely monastic air to the role, as though it were her fate to be burned at the polling booth. O’Connor’s Burns is more playful, languorous and openly yearning. Both made sacrifices to devote themselves to a cause.

Von Garnier is not above the occasional nifty camera trick -- when Paul first arrives in Philadelphia, for instance, the sidewalk crowd seems to rush by at warp speed as her wide eyes take it all in -- but mostly, “Iron Jawed Angels” doesn’t rely on stylistic anachronisms to make it feel contemporary. This is a rather downhearted compliment, considering the attitudes and biases of the day require less updating than the costumes did. Then as now, all is fair in war -- especially the really unfair stuff.

*

‘Iron Jawed Angels’

Where: HBO

When: Premieres 9:30-11:30 p.m. Sunday

Rating: The network has rated the movie TV-14 (may not be suitable for children under age 14).

Hilary Swank...Alice Paul

Frances O’Connor...Lucy Burns

Anjelica Huston...Carrie Chapman Catt

Julia Ormond...Inez Milholland

Patrick Dempsey...Ben Weissman

Executive producers, Paula Weinstein, Len Amato, Robin Forman and Lydia Dean Pilche. Director, Katja von Garnier. Writer, Sally Robinson.