Movies Reviews

The Iron Lady – Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Dec 30, 2011, 17:18 GMT

A look at the life of Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep), the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, with a focus on the price she paid for power. ...more

Despite any years end awards or best lists, Meryl Streep’s performance as the late Prime Minister Thatcher is the best of the year.  Even her fans tend to take Streep for granted but this is an instance of the great Streep outdoing herself.  Her nuanced delicacy and corpuscular becoming of Thatcher are beyond any performance in recent memory. She is uncanny.
 
Thatcher, England’s first female Prime Minister, enemy of labour unions and the welfare state, was an uncompromising woman in a man’s world.  Some won’t take to Streep’s work to top 2011 “best” lists.  And many of Thatcher’s political colleagues didn’t take to her in the same way.  She was a tough person to like by all accounts. 

Instead list makers are tending towards the fragile, sensual, “save-me” Marilyn Monroe as portrayed by Michelle Williams. Not to take away from Williams’ amazing work, but Streep has recreated a controversial, difficult character without a by your leave.   She brings the unpleasant and the important to life.

The film brings back memories of Thatcher’s world domination at the time of her service, and how she inspired love or disdain, nothing in between.  What a burden it must have been, and she probably fought hard with herself not to give anything away.

Thatcher was a polarizing figure at a difficult time in Britain’s economic and political history.  If a man had behaved the way she did, he would be cheered. 

As a woman, Thatcher was portrayed as a monster.   Streep plays her bad sport moments with equal gusto, and they are ugly, without reservation.  As one of the best known right wing political players in modern history, hers is a hugely important legacy and story and it ain’t all pretty.

Streep plays the poignant moments battling encroaching dementia with all the terror, fakery and confusion that awful disease brings, with empathy and mastery.  Those who have seen dementia in the flesh will recognize the greatness of her portrayal. 

There is a marvelous scene in which Thatcher has wrongly and in a bad temper, ordered a meeting ended and once alone, deflates.  But just for a moment.  There is another where between tentative answers to prying relatives in her dementia phase, she utters just two words and says it all.

The film is not a hagiography.   It is a look behind the scenes at an elderly woman reliving her glory years in her imagination while suffering of-the-moment ravages of growing old in stark contrast.  From that point of view, and in Streep`s hands, it is breathtaking. 

Unfortunately the film doesn’t measure up to the greatness Streep gives it.  It glosses over the meat of Thatcher’s real political accomplishments which include crashing the boundaries of gender and background too quickly, to focus on drawn out sequences detailing her dementia. 

 Scenes with her late husband Dennis (Jim Broadbent) appearing in her imagination to advise and encourage are repeated to the point of ridiculousness.  Her political triumphs and fearlessness are what will go down in history, except here. 

The film essentially fails Streep’s portrayal, dumbing down Thatcher’s life to episodes and dementia.  It feels loose and unfocussed at times but thanks to Streep’s performance, it is well worth watching. 

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35 mm drama
Written by Abi Morgan
Directed by Phyllida Law
Opens:  Dec 30
Runtime: 105 min
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some violent images and brief nudity
Country: UK
Language: English