The Iron Lady
Opens Friday at International Village
Love her or (more likely) hate her, there was no denying Margaret Thatcher's influence on gender and politics, even if she did make "tory" a four-letter word around the globe.
First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond recently called her "that bloody woman," Scotland never having forgiven Thatcher for inflicting the poll tax on them a full year before the English got it, nor the decimation of their coal mines and dockyards. Ireland likewise has no love for Thatcher: newly released documents show back-door dealings and correspondence from the prime minister herself, as 10 Irish Republican hunger-strikers died while Thatcher held her ground.
Meryl Streep plays Thatcher-meaning, of course, that people will flock to see the film and the title is bound to come up at Oscar time. The world seems to be in agreement that there is no accent that Streep can't master, and no character-aided by a great hair and makeup department-she can't play. She gives a superlative performance. But while Streep makes an uncanny Thatcher, a spot-on portrait does not make a great film.
Much of the aforementioned hot-button politics of her reign are glossed over in favour of shots of Thatcher doddering around in her nightgown. The intention may have been to paint a more human, more sympathetic portrait, but the result is the reverse. Without a fully drawn portrait, we can only assume that some of her policies were based on mercurial meanness rather than thoughtful resolve.
We see the young Margaret (nicely portrayed by Alexandra Roach) as she shrugs off her middle-class upbringing and makes a run for the Conservative party. It's during this time that she meets Denis (Harry Lloyd, and later, Jim Broadbent), and after a bland-as-blancmange courtship, they are married. But only after Margaret makes a case for autonomy in marriage, declaring, "I will not die washing a teacup" (an unsubtle foreshadowing of the film's final scene). The lack of chemistry between the two young actors is a missed opportunity to inject some heart into the story.
Streep and Broadbent fare better, but barely, bogged down by stale conversations between a ghost and the woman whose shadow he always occupied. At times it feels like the script is biding its time before it can unleash another Thatcherism: "It's time to put the great back into Great Britain!" or "Watch your character, because it becomes your destiny!"
We see Thatcher as she is groomed for public life (blue was her signature colour, the pearls were "non-negotiable") and as she necessarily neglects her husband and children in her pursuit of power. Trouble comes with the Falkland War and the riots over taxation, which eventually pushed her out of office, after 11 years at 10 Downing Street.
But the flashbacks and snippets of Thatcher's life offered by director Phyllida Lloyd (who worked with Streep in Mamma Mia!) are collectively not enough to piece together a satisfactory portrait of the first female leader of the western world, nor of her lasting influence.
