The Iron Lady

Margaret Thatcher sounds like a very complicated person who would not be easy to effectively gauge. Being the first female prime minister for Britain as well as the longest serving for the 20th century, her period of leadership between 1979 and 1990 was seeped in controversy and resulted in a public and political reception that ranged from outstanding praise to outstanding disdain. Her unshakable nature matched with her harsh conservative viewpoints and a weirdly sexist demeanor towards other women caused a fair deal of strife, but her legitimately effective leading strategies along with genuinely improving the country when it was in a rough patch, makes her a politician that can’t be easily labelled, and a film centred around her time in office would be juicy. The 2011 British biography, The Iron Lady, may have attempted to provide a fulfilling feature, but instead presents something arguably as messy and controversial as the woman herself.

In the present day, an elderly Margaret Thatcher (played by Meryl Streep) is dealing with the current state of Britain now that she’s no longer in power, as well as grappling with the repressed grief she feels following the death of her husband, Denis (played by Jim Broadbent), who appears as a ghost-like figure that refuses to leave despite her believing that she’s trying to move on. The film simultaneously cuts back to a younger Margaret Thatcher (played by Alexandra Roach) who after being inspired by her grocer politician father, Alfred (played by Iain Glen), strives for a position in parliament which she eventually achieves, though she faces certain hurdles due to being one of the few women in the party. Wishing to shake up the system, she runs for prime minister and actually wins, creating a situation where she can make changes that she believes are necessary, but this is also met with criticism by those in her own party, the general public and even her own family (who leave after she becomes to dedicated to her work). Recalling these events and how they impacted her, Thatcher will need to piece together her own thoughts about herself and her husband before she can finally move on in this new uncertain world not led by her.

Met with mixed reception, but still managing to secure two Oscar wins (including Meryl Street for Best Actress), The Iron Lady doesn’t portray the story of Margaret Thatcher in a very clean or even coherent manner, being a film that features odd presentation decisions, a shallow delivery and a very weak screenplay, but does get enough positive points for some of its directing, visuals and acting to make it at least watchable.

When telling the story of a person this prolific in a country’s history, there needs to be a sense of authenticity, care, and legitimate awareness in order to not feel overly biased, and to feel like something has been gained and provided information when walking out of it. To the movie’s credit, it doesn’t entirely shy away from the truly complicated prime minister and person Thatcher was, bringing to light the flaws in her personal and professional life. While they aren’t delved into enough to feel prominent (which is a major problem this film suffers), they are showcased enough to leave an impression and give a sense of insight into who she was and what she was like. There are moments throughout that do get into her mind and at times, this presentation is pretty interesting. It’s not laid out like a traditional grounded biopic as it features slight oddities like mental ghosts, awkward fade-ins, and unique camera shots, which can feel slightly cartoonish in moments, but doesn’t feel too distracting either as it remembers to keep focus on the title character and the odd nature is more in service of her rather than a distraction. The visual nature of the film does provide a sense of wordless commentary that gives fascinating insight into her as a person and provides more context than any line of dialogue could ever do. This is a credit to director Phyllida Llyod, who does a decent enough job piecing together what is a truly awful story with enough flair and a sense of dynamic energy to make it not dull or uninteresting to sit through, but even she doesn’t come out of this picture looking great.

There are some odd decisions that don’t always work in its favor and its bizarre insistence on focusing more on Thatcher’s life post her political career and struggle with dementia, isn’t what people would want to see in a biopic on her, made even worse by the multiple historical inaccuracies that placate this film against a rushed and even shallow presentation that doesn’t offer a lot of in-depth analysis into this period of her life. The screenplay by Abi Morgan is the worst thing about this movie, being unable to juggle and portray these historical events in a manner that makes them feels as monumental and impactful as they were in real life, and takes a monumental figure in British history and makes her feel a little like an odd gimmick with more of an on-site acknowledgement rather than someone who was noticed all around (in a good or a bad way).

Whether people were overly critical or overly positive about this film, the general consensus was that Meryl Streep was very strong in her portrayal as Margaret Thatcher, and that assessment does seem to be true. While some had an issue with such a prominent figure in British history being played by an American woman, it can’t be denied that Streep does do a fantastic job carrying a good chunk of this film on her shoulders through her passionate yet still reserved performance. It’s funny seeing how Phyllida Llyod directed Meryl Streep in two of her movies (The Iron Lady and the 2002 musical film, Mamma Mia), and it’s interesting seeing her go from arguably her worst performance to one of her best ones under the guide of the same person. For an actress that is credited as being one of the best in the business, yet has grown a little comfortable in a persona which has resulted in a lot of her performances mostly feeling the same (even if they are still done well), her strongest work seems to be when that persona isn’t present (with examples like Sophie’s Choice, Kramer vs Kramer and even The Deer Hunter) and here, that is half the case. You can at times feel the typical Streep-ism shining through, but it is impressive how for a majority of the film, it does feel like a completely different person from the way that she moves, acts to even how she sounds (she does have a pretty great British accent). Again, there are things to pick apart about this portrayal as there are several things involving her life that were fictionalized to a pretty heavy degree (some were acceptable, while others seem a little more ridiculous), but she does do a pretty good job and despite how many times she’s been nominated, actually did feel worthy of that win this time around.

While the film houses a few other recognizable names like Anthony Head, Iain Glen, Jim Broadbent, Richard E. Grant, and Olivia Colman, none of them are really given the chance to show off their talents as the movie doesn’t really seem to care about any other person outside of Thatcher. The concept for Broadbent’s role as this playful recreation of a long dead husband is a fun idea and Broadbent does bring that jovial yet still self-aware element to the role that makes him fairly memorable, but his lack of presence while he was alive doesn’t allow the audience to ever feel like they knew who he was after he passed on, so the prospect of him remaining as a ghost doesn’t feel as meaningful as we don’t really know how she felt about him.

The technicals for this movie are for the most part, pretty drab and uninteresting, and not much about this story is really presented in an overly cinematic fashion. However, while this would normally be a death sentence for a lot of films as an unappealing visual look can really drag down how someone perceives a picture, not only does this more run-down and less glossy factor feel more in line with this kind of British biopic picture that were pretty frequent at the time, but on occasion, there are times when some bright spots shine through. Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland were the two responsible for applying the hair and make-up for Margaret Thatcher onto Meryl Streep (enough to get them an Oscar win) and while not being an element that most casual moviegoers would notice, it is a pretty impressive job, showing the different stages of her life through her physical appearance and how she looks noticeably different between each passing period, so it is a credit to two talent artists who were able to turn a very recognizable actress into a very prominent political figure.

The cinematography by Elliot Davis is very strangely done in this movie, ranging from decently composed shots and fun cinematic angles (especially whenever it highlights how ostracized she feels from the rest of parliament), to really odd, titled shots and overly cartoonish angles of equally cartoonish performers which don’t further anything and can sometimes take you out of a moment (we know parliament can feel like a very over-the-top circus act, but this is taking it to another level). The editing by Justine Wright is also a little wonky, with jumps between scenes that often feel a little sloppy and certain montage moments feeling very weirdly stitched together with the film’s poor pacing not helping the situation either.

Margaret Thatcher seems like a person that made questionable decisions that seemed to hurt a lot of people, but she also had an admirable strength to her work ethic and determination to protect her country to the best of her ability which makes her a truly complex individual that had shades of both and would be hard for anyone to properly pin down, so to see a film based around this person focus more on her staggering around a dimly lit bedroom as a withering mentally-distant widow literally curtained from politics is simply ridiculous. While the personal element is necessary to help an audience find sympathy, it shouldn’t be the major focus, otherwise you end up with an ill-conceived, poorly constructed picture that feels very limp and shallow in its delivery. This movie isn’t necessarily bad as it houses a few good scenes, stable direction, some nice performances (mainly from Streep) and for someone who knows nothing about the first female British prime minister, the movie does provide enough of a stepping off point to result in a further google search. However, that search will provide a lot more information and show what this film delivered falsely thanks to its terrible script, overly brisk pace, hard to connect atmosphere and its fabrication of many real-life events. For complete novices about her history, it might be passable, but for anyone actually hoping to learn about her, this film isn’t an iron-clad option.