Written by
Gaby Chiappe, Rebecca Frayn
Directed by
Philippa Lowthorpe
Runtime 106'
Production 2020
FR, GB
Rating
K-12 (may be inappropriate for children under 12)
Starring
Keira Knightley as Sally Alexander, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Jennifer Hosten, Jessie Buckley as Jo Robinson, Keeley Hawes as Julia Morley, Lesley Manville as Dolores Hope, Rhys Ifans as Eric Morley
Plot
In 1970, the Miss World competition took place in London, hosted by US comedy legend, Bob Hope. At the time, Miss World was the most-watched TV show on the planet with over 100 million viewers. Claiming that beauty competitions demeaned women, the newly formed Women’s Liberation Movement achieved overnight fame by invading the stage and disrupting the live broadcast of the competition. Not only that, when the show resumed, the result caused uproar: the winner was not the Swedish favourite but Miss Grenada, the first black woman to be crowned Miss World. In a matter of hours, a global audience had witnessed the patriarchy driven from the stage and the Western ideal of beauty turned on its head.