Review of The Iron Lady (2011) by Walter M — 09 May 2013

No, "The Iron Lady" is not a spinoff from "Iron Man."(Sorry, couldn't resist.) Rather, it is about the life and times of Margaret Thatcher(Meryl Streep). While severely flawed with a narrow perspective, the movie still has some superb makeup and odd charm of its own to make it watchable. A lot of that involves setting a good deal of the movie with Thatcher in her dotage, trying to be self-sufficient like her former policies, but ironically ending up depending on the help of others. Admittedly, this format works as far as allowing Thatcher to be lost in her memories but goes on far too long with her being haunted by her late husband Denis(Jim Broadbent), forcing this uncomfortably in the general neighborhood of a Saturday Night Live sketch with a performance from Meryl Streep that plays primarily to the cheap seats, almost allowing Anthony Stewart Head to steal the movie.

"The Iron Lady" dutifully recounts the main points of Thatcher's career to the point of where a documentary might have been the right way to go with such a divisive figure, thus allowing everybody the opportunity put in their two cents.(And there is an abundance of archival footage on display here anyway.) While the movie seeks to show that Thatcher was the only female member of parliament, it was not exactly true, as women were about 4% of the House of Commons until at least the 80's(Source: UK Political Info). Like any good anti-Communist, she liked her tyrants, like Pinochet(not mentioned here), and was here not fond of consensus which led to her welcome being worn out after 11 years, long after her career making triumph in the Falkland Islands War.(Tony Blair probably thought if it worked for her...) And am I the only person who hears Thatcher use the royal 'we' at one point? At least it would explain the "King and I" reference.(Phyllida Lloyd also directed "Mamma Mia," thus making her contribution to the auteur theory.).