Review of The Iron Lady (2011) by Stevenf — 25 Mar 2013

Meryl Streep gives one of the finest performances of her career, one that will go down as one of the best renditions brought to cinema, unfortunately the film that comes along with her is simply a below par effort of idolising a very controversial figure of British politics.

The premise of the story was well thought out, we start with a very old Lady Thatcher struggling with her dementia, unable to realise that her husband, Dennis (Jim Broadbent) who she is talking to, is actually dead, showing the severity of her memory loss. She begins reminiscing about her time as a young up and coming politician, showing a biased view of her rise to power, she is portrayed as being one of the only women within Parliament at this time which is in fact untrue, as there were at least 20 others.

We see the eventual woman we remember today, the Prime Minister of Britain, coining the infamous 'Iron Lady' nickname.

However, the film takes a very dramatic stance on emphasising Thatcher's rise to power, we are always made to feel sorry for someone who was by all means a warmonger, this isn't by any means sour grapes as we don't know the woman behind the power, but her defining policies outlined in this film are created to almost make us feel guilty for her, remorse is something this film attempts to receive too often.

It simply isn't gritty and true to life, the moments of Thatchers defiance are almost pantomime-like, bringing little seriousness to the issues that she is dealing with, and over-compensating with an epic score that feels very out of place.

Meryl Streep, however, is completely majestic as Thatcher, perfecting her high-pitched yet civilised accent down to a tee, and capitalising on her moments of humiliating her Cabinet staff, it can be said that Thatchers deteriorating moments and failure to distinguish between past and present are brought emotionally to life by Streep, who is as simply hit the unique persona of the former PM head on. It is just unfortunate that her performance completely shadows this very mediocre and timid attempt at painting the life of one of the most controversial political figures of the modern era.

Without Streep, this film simply would have been nothing, but her commanding performance deserves enough recognition and praise to watch this, but unfortunately this is an idolising film that only touches on a feministic rise against the odds, rather than a true picture of the error and strain of this much publicised politician.