5/10
The first major Hollywood effort to document Margaret
Thatcher’s life made a strategic error.
Instead of focusing on the Iron Lady kicking butt in the 1980s in the
extremely male dominated arena of global politics, The Iron lady chose to
focus on Margaret’s mid-stage dementia with haphazard flashbacks to the major
themes throughout her life. Casting the
world’s greatest living actress, Meryl Streep, was a very wise decision but
even she cannot make up for the dreadful script which spotlights the wrong era
in the Prime Minister’s long and eventful life.
Margaret Thatcher was Great Britain’s first female Prime
Minister when she entered 10 Downing St. in 1979. Her beginning as a grocer’s daughter, a rare
female parliamentarian, and finally Conservative Party leader are briefly
examined in the film, but only superficially.
Instead, an older Thatcher putters around her apartment conversing with
her dead husband, Dennis (Jim Broadbent), and making statements which sound
like she still considers herself Prime Minister. Think of a Ronald Reagan biopic; do you want
to see Reagan as Governor, running for President, and meeting with Gorbachev or
do you want to see Reagan in full blown dementia trying to remember his name?
Meryl Streep is a very convincing Margaret Thatcher. It makes quite a statement that an American
actress was chosen over a native Brit but perhaps that is because the director,
Phyllida Lloyd, also directed Streep in Mamma Mia. She plays a younger Margaret just as well as
she plays stooped over and shuffling Margaret.
For the audience; however, the film is just so much more intriguing to
watch young Margaret develop her ideas about helping yourself vs. help from the
government and responding appropriately to terrorism (IRA), etc…. Politically, there are quite a few parallels
to current issues from Margaret’s 1980s platform of government austerity
measures, deficit spending, and combating unemployment. Unfortunately, these policy vignettes are
egregiously glossed over to hurry up and get back to another senile Margaret
episode.
The Iron Lady takes advantage of various ways to emphasize the
oddity of a female rising so high within the British government. There are a few montages where the zoomed-in
camera pans across a line of dark suits and then abruptly stops when it hits an
almost neon blue blouse and skirt. On
Margaret’s first day in Parliament there is a very similar shot panning across
uniformly black dress shoes until it halts on a pair of black and white heels. Margaret gets a few monologues in Parliament
as she spars contentiously with opposition leaders and holds her own. Her best speech is in response to the
Falkland Islands War and Britain’s decisive victory over Argentina. The 1982 war gets a few more minutes of
screen time than her other major political moments, but it still feels rushed
and choppy because by now the audience realizes the film does not want to be in
the past, but wants to stay with Margaret in the present.
What a shame that Meryl Streep’s fascinating performance is
wasted on such a lackluster script and meandering film. While I do not recommend The Iron Lady, I do not
argue harshly against it exclusively due to Streep’s virtuoso performance. I recognize this film for what it is; a wasted
opportunity to profile an interesting world leader who attracted the acting
talent she warranted, but not the story.
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