It’s not often I can summarise a movie review into four words … just go see it! Or do not miss it, however that is the case for RBG. The movie is an inspirational journey through the life of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. The main comment among the crowd on the way out was, how did we not know about this woman?
Running at just 97 minutes the movie successfully crams in as much as it can about the Ginsbergs mesmerizing life. When some of the initial images show the 85 year old in a plank position, her trainer counting down from 27, you know you’re in for something different.
The movie harks back to her early days in law school where she met her beautifully supportive partner of 53 years who ‘cared that I had a brain, most didn’t in the fifties,’ said Ginsberg.
She went on to Harvard as one of the 2% of female students and got the idea that she could ‘do something to make the country a little better’.
In her early years as a lawyer she championed equal rights for both sexes, a position bought home to the largely male fraternity when she presented the case of a man who, having lost her wife in childbirth, was unable to obtain the widows pension as it was ‘for women’.
Roll on to several years of working through the week and sleeping on the weekend to catch up. She faced battles with cancer for her husband and herself, twice. After ten years with pancreatic cancer she says it left her with an ‘enhanced joy of being alive.’ Through all this we see her rise to the highest U.S. courts as one of the first Associate Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. Their she quietly set about changing laws and writing dissents.
Equally fascinating is the fact that she has become an unlikely pop icon among the younger generation. Some reasons will know of wrapper ‘Notorious BIG’, Ginsberg has been dubbed ‘Notorious RBG’.
There are so many lessons to learn from this movie. Firstly there’s the history that we should never forget, but equally important is the manner in which Ginsberg has achieved. A quiet, shy, deep thinker, many thought she wasn’t listening. She believes that you achieve real change by taking one step at a time. By her own admission her parents taught her about love, learning, caring about people and working hard for what you believe in. Ginsbergs mother instilled in her that to be a lady is ‘to be independent’ and ‘not to be overcome with emotions’. She also taught her that the way to win an argument is not to yell, that yelling ‘turns people away’ from your table rather than inviting them in.
I’ve rarely seen so many people hanging back in the foyer to chat after a movie, as I said most of us were stunned about not knowing her story, and this included women who’d had their own political successes. Personally I pondered:
- For me one of the most fascinating things was the fact that Ginsberg is packaged in a tiny sparrow-like frame. So much power in such a tiny package;
- A strong lesson learnt was that she has achieves so much while speaking in a quiet voice not a holler.
- The movie is fitting tribute to an astounding women and I’m so pleased it has been made so we can all appreciate her. I truly hope it gets a wide distribution, ideally into every high school in Australia.
So much life crammed into three little letters, RBG.
For more information go to Luna Cinema
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Inspirational
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Educational
