A year ago I read that this was going to be coming out. Obviously it would be Oscar bait; the Academy loves themselves a good biopic and lord knows they believe God is a woman and that She is in the form of Meryl Streep. Obviously, then, a story about one of the most controversial political figures of the 20th century, Margaret Thatcher, as portrayed by the greatest working actress should have been cinematic gold. I would like very much to confirm those expectations; instead I must shatter them for all of those who have yet to see it.
Meryl Streep is titanic in her performance. There is no doubt of her range and capabilities, and she proves within the first few minutes why she was chosen over other equally qualified British actresses to play one of the most British figures that we in our modern world can remember. It is nearly certain after seeing the many layers of Thatcher revealed unflinchingly by this sorceress of the screen that she will grab her third Oscar, and it may be that this is the highlight of her career. It is certainly a tremendous performance and something to be very proud of.
Director Phyllida Lloyd should then be ashamed at herself for having taken such a powerful story and the actress of actresses and thrown them away. This is a rubbish presentation of a mediocre biopic, told in the most slapdash of fashions and was, if I am being frank, quite ugly to watch.
Told through flashbacks of the delusional Thatcher in her later years, The Iron Lady presents the life of the first and only female prime minister of Great Britain from time spent in the war (young Thatcher was played by an awful Alexandra Roach) until the day that she resigned from office. The structure is held together by two days in her later years where she is trying to clear a dresser of her late husband's things with the help of her daughter (Olivia Colman). As she does she is plagued by the hallucinations of her husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent), which in turn trigger memories from the past.
Why this needed to be so I cannot possibly understand. There was nothing to be gained from a dramatic interpretation of a crazy Thatcher, and I found it tedious and distracting. It was not always entirely clear when the jumps were being made, why they were being made, and what the audience was supposed to gain from having had the experience. There were even times when, although the flashbacks were supposed to move forward chronologically, they jumped backwards. It was confusing and completely pointless. What was most frustrating about them is that they did not focus at all on the important parts of her life that we glimpse in these moments. There is plenty of footage of her talking about campaigning but they never show her doing it. There are moments and lots of dialogue about the struggles she has had being a woman, but they don't fully explore her first day in Parliament or the troubles she had becoming Prime Minister. Streep continuously spouted out lines about being a strong leader, but you seldom saw her doing it. She seemed more like a great bully than a great leader, but it funnily presented her that way in the nicest fashion.
What would have made this film tolerable, good even, would have been to focus the span of time in which it was told. The film glazed over the miner strikes even though that was an important and incredibly volatile part of her career. I think that if it was chosen to center on those years and that particular problem, in much the same way that last year's The King's Speech chose to focus on the decade leading up to WWII, then we would not only have a film in which we were blown away by a magisterial performance, but we also would have a plot that we could follow and become attached to. I really could not care less about the price of milk, the way she styled her hair, or her trip to the doctor, but that is what this film made most important and it made me very restless in my seat.
Furthermore, this film suffered from the same illness that The Lady did: over-direction. Stock footage, dutch tilts, slow motion, everything that a director has at his disposal (or hers in this case) was used to extremely poor effect. It was badly edited and dramatic bits were pushed to the ridiculous. An overhaul of the script and a completely new director would have been needed in order to make the film that I imagined. The costumes were great and the makeup surprisingly good (a lesser person might say that was because it was written and directed by women....I guess I'm a lesser person), but it takes more than a pretty hat and some good fake jowls to win over this guy. Margaret Thatcher would have known that. I summarize a very good passage of hers where she reproachfully states that people act on feelings rather than thoughts and ideas. How true, Maggie. If one is to create a film about the Iron Lady, then one must show her in the way she wished to be seen: without frilly gimmicks, and with a hard, crisp edge. Only then would the topic have been done justice.
1/4
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