On the Basis of Sex review – A stand for women

The inspiring story of American lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her groundbreaking battle to overturn a century of gender discrimination makes for riveting viewing.

While the structure seems inelegant at times, and the narrative is thickly coated in legal verbiage, the acting and the sense of purpose give On the Basis of Sex its special appeal.

Felicity Jones, given a role worthy of her status, imbues her character with enormous gravitas – and the production soars.

The film follows two decades in Ginsburg’s early career, from her start as one of only nine females in a class of 500 at Harvard Law School in the 1950s, through to the early ’70s when her role as a trailblazer for equal rights was gathering momentum.

Her first case was an internal revenue issue in which a male caregiver named Moritz (Chris Mulkey) was denied access to funds because of his gender. Together with her husband, she argued the case, setting the stage for overturning notions of gender discrimination under the US constitution.

Felicity Jones and Armie Hammer in On the Basis of Sex. Picture: Storyteller Distribution

Our first encounter with Ginseburg is in 1956 as a young, ambitious woman, a rose among many thorns at Harvard Law School. Her capabilities are shown executing a number of amazing feats.

While her husband Marty (Armie Hammer), a fellow law student, fought cancer, she attended both his classes and hers, typing up both of their papers late at night. She also found time to manage her household and coordinate child care for their daughter.

At Harvard she faced gender discrimination at its worst, when the all-male faculty ignored her raised hand in class and condescended to her outside of it. She endured all this, thanks to the encouragement of her husband.

The film moves from there to her days of struggling to get a job as, to quote her words, she was “a woman, a mother, and a Jew to boot.” Then in 1970 she tackled a case that changed her career.

Mimi Leder’s production strikes a delicate balance between capturing Ginsburg as a contemporary folk heroine and a fiercely ambitious intellectual competing for footing in an era dominated by males.

Lending heat to the unfolding drama is Justin Theroux, as the fiery ACLU legal director Melvin L Wulf, who backs Ginsburg’s endeavours, and an underused Kathy Bates as the eminent activist and attorney, Dorothy Kenyon.

Felicity Jones in On the Basis of Sex. Picture: Storyteller Distribution

A stern-faced Sam Waterston is cast as Erwin Griswold. He was a spectacularly sexist dean of Harvard Law School and for 10 years he fought against allowing women to enter Harvard Law.

When Ginsburg was admitted she was part of a rarefied group of 500 students, a mere six years after women were granted entry.

On The Basis of Sex is compelling cinema. However, the manner in which institutional sexism is interpreted here, casting Griswold and his ilk as woman-hating super villains, reduces a centuries-long, culturally supported practice to a play-by-numbers wickedness.

Info

Rating:  ★★★★☆
Cast: Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux, Sam Waterston, Stephen Root, Kathy Bates, Chris Mulkey
Director: Mimi Leder
Classification: 13 DLPS

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