Review of The Iron Lady (2011) by Scott H — 23 May 2015

Interesting, albeit quite light on details, seemingly for the sake of attempting at promoting a rah-rah conservatism picture of politics (stressed out Maggie dealing with the awful riotous populace who take exception to her "poor people are lazy" attitude). Though, I'd argue that it fails at that too - while it's certainly commendable for her to have been the first female prime minister of England, all this does is show her off to be a tyrannical bitch (which I'm sure is not at all far from the truth; and I'm sure it was about the only way she got as far as she did) who was so dead-set on being proven right and being proven to be tough that she cared nothing for actual people and their actual concerns. Of course, the film offsets this by pulling a sympathy card with her later dementia, but even that falls flat when contrasted against her earlier political years.

So, ultimately, interesting, enjoyable enough, but not nearly detailed, politically impartial, nor human-oriented enough to work as a definitive portrait of a divisive figure. It says a lot about your film-making skills when you don't manage to make someone unrelatable any more relatable throughout.