In purely cynical terms, one has to wonder if the makers of The Iron Lady wanted to release a film about old age and senility but were warned that such a sombre topic would never perform well at the box office. You can almost imagine some studio executive saying "no, no, no, we can't possibly promote that sort of movie. Unless you make it about someone famous
that would make people go and see it." Although advertised as an account of the life and political career of Margaret Thatcher, the film doesn't come close to doing justice to such a vast topic. Instead we get a whistle-stop tour of key events – five minutes of the miners' strike, five minutes of the Brighton bombing, three minutes about Poll Tax, and so on. The nearest the film gets to real depth, politically-speaking, is when it devotes fifteen whole minutes of precious screen time to the Falklands War.
No, this is not a true political biopic in the usual sense. What we have here is a thin and rather dull story about an old lady's deteriorating health, punctuated along the way with flashbacks to the events that shaped her career. The fact that the old lady in question is Margaret Thatcher comes across almost as a gimmick. They could have made the film about any elderly lady, fictional or real - it would scarcely have mattered. All the important aspects of Thatcher's policies and the legacy her government left behind are dealt with in far too shallow a manner, while any insight into Thatcher as a person gets lost amidst an onrush of excessive newsreel footage. Indeed, it seems as if 25% of the film comprises of these old archival bits and pieces, which really is a case of overkill.
Since the narrative amounts to nothing more than a series of jerky flashbacks, all superficial and absurdly brief, one wonders if there is any reason to watch the film at all. Fortunately, there is one aspect of The Iron Lady that shines like a glowing beacon through the gloom – and that is the marvellous performance of Meryl Streep. Streep's portrayal of the former Prime Minister is a masterclass in screen acting. The voice, the mannerisms, the physical appearance, the haughty attitude she nails it all. There are some notable names alongside her in the cast too, but generally they are in sub-par form. In some cases they're undone by poor writing, like Jim Broadbent's cartoonish "ghost of Dennis Thatcher", while others simply have too little screen time to get their teeth into the part (Richard E. Grant for example who, as Michael Heseltine, is so under-used that he simply fails to register).
Some might say the film has been made a generation too soon, since the scars of Thatcherite politics still run deep in many parts of the UK. Nonetheless, a controversial but powerful biopic could and should have resulted here if anyone associated with it had shown the courage to take a standpoint. Timidly, the film neither celebrates nor condemns Thatcher. It wimps out by presenting its entire story through the eyes of her as a mentally fragile old lady, thereby avoiding the need to "take a side". All in all, The Iron Lady is a missed opportunity. Streep's performance drags it up to the level of a watchable curiosity item but that's about the best it can offer.
No, this is not a true political biopic in the usual sense. What we have here is a thin and rather dull story about an old lady's deteriorating health, punctuated along the way with flashbacks to the events that shaped her career. The fact that the old lady in question is Margaret Thatcher comes across almost as a gimmick. They could have made the film about any elderly lady, fictional or real - it would scarcely have mattered. All the important aspects of Thatcher's policies and the legacy her government left behind are dealt with in far too shallow a manner, while any insight into Thatcher as a person gets lost amidst an onrush of excessive newsreel footage. Indeed, it seems as if 25% of the film comprises of these old archival bits and pieces, which really is a case of overkill.
Since the narrative amounts to nothing more than a series of jerky flashbacks, all superficial and absurdly brief, one wonders if there is any reason to watch the film at all. Fortunately, there is one aspect of The Iron Lady that shines like a glowing beacon through the gloom – and that is the marvellous performance of Meryl Streep. Streep's portrayal of the former Prime Minister is a masterclass in screen acting. The voice, the mannerisms, the physical appearance, the haughty attitude she nails it all. There are some notable names alongside her in the cast too, but generally they are in sub-par form. In some cases they're undone by poor writing, like Jim Broadbent's cartoonish "ghost of Dennis Thatcher", while others simply have too little screen time to get their teeth into the part (Richard E. Grant for example who, as Michael Heseltine, is so under-used that he simply fails to register).
Some might say the film has been made a generation too soon, since the scars of Thatcherite politics still run deep in many parts of the UK. Nonetheless, a controversial but powerful biopic could and should have resulted here if anyone associated with it had shown the courage to take a standpoint. Timidly, the film neither celebrates nor condemns Thatcher. It wimps out by presenting its entire story through the eyes of her as a mentally fragile old lady, thereby avoiding the need to "take a side". All in all, The Iron Lady is a missed opportunity. Streep's performance drags it up to the level of a watchable curiosity item but that's about the best it can offer.