Review No.14: The Iron Lady

At the beginning of The Iron Lady you're guessing that this film is about a woman who is struggling to cope with old age as she is befuddled by the price of milk, has to have someone to cook her meals and still talks to her dead husband. Though this subject has been covered many times before if it does in an interesting way it makes for good subject matter for a film but unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months you'll know this film is about our only female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The majority of The Iron Lady is set in the present day as Thatcher's staff and family are worried that she still hasn't cleared out Dennis' belongings even though he died eight years previous. Thatcher is seemingly frustrated by most elements of her life apart from regular visits from Dennis' ghost something that she is comforted by and worried of in equal measure. These scenes are then combined with flashbacks of Thatcher's political career from her early story is told with the use of young actress Alexandra Roach as we see her change from a humble grocer's daughter to the MP for Finchley. When Meryl Streep takes over the role and Thatcher becomes prime minister we get a potted history, almost a highlight reel, of the major events of Thatcher's reign as our PM. So we get a little bit about the IRA bombings, small bit of the recession, some of the miner's strike with The Falklands conflict being awarded the most amount of time and still it gets less than a quarter of an hour. In fact there are about six years of her reign that simply get a six minute montage in which she is seen dancing with various world leaders. Obviously the end comes when her time as PM comes to an end and in the present day she finally learns to let go of Dennis' ghost.

It is interesting that the majority of time given to a story about one of Britain's most prolific figures is of a story that is somewhat imagined by screenwriter Abi Morgan and director Phyllida Lloyd rather than based on Maggie's time in charge of the country. It seems that Morgan, Lloyd and Streep want to tell the story of a once strong woman declining in her old age and trying to cling on to her memories as she looks at old photos and watches DVDs of family outings. Even though the film portrays Thatcher as a role model for other women, in one of the present days scenes an acquaitance describes her as an inspiration, the film shows that men are at the forefront of most of her decisions. It is made out that it is only through her marriage to Dennis that she is able to get her role as an MP, her advisers are the ones who think she'd make a good Prime Minister and even in her old age it is Dennis and son Mark she wants to see more than her daughter and female staff. I have to say The Iron Lady succeeds in telling a story of a woman in mourning for her husband and one who is out of step with modern da society but not so much  a story of a political leader who strongly divided public opinion. There are many more interesting biopics of Thatcher that have been made for TV such as Margaret starring Lindsay Duncan and The Long Road to Finchley with Andrea Riseborough in the lead role. The Iron Lady's strongest element is in its casting and I have to say, after being initially cynical of Meryl Streep taking the role, the lead actress does hell of a job. The biggest compliment I can give to her performance is that I never thought I was watching Streep giving an impression of Thatcher but rather I was watching an actress portray this lady in her own way. Olivia Colman is also fantastic as Carol Thatcher getting the body language and speech dead on while Jim Broadbent is also great as Dennis. I just felt The Iron Lady was quite muddled part social commentary, part biopic and even part ghost story this should've been a film that evoked strong emotions and instead was a gentle story about love, loss and getting on with things.

Verdict: Streep is great in the lead role and there are some good scenes in there but with such a heavy subject matter to work with this is an awfully light film that I can only award 6.5/10