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Friday, January 13, 2012
MOVIE REVIEW
The Iron Lady
Memories Of An Infamous Reign In Britain
Meryl Streep as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd's
drama "The Iron Lady".
The Weinstein Company
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Friday,
January 13, 2012
"Iron Lady" director
Phyllida Lloyd does a wise thing in her film, which expanded its theatrical
release in the U.S. today: she starts her story in the present day, with an aged
Margaret Thatcher as a figure of antiquity, withered and left behind by a new
multicultural, short-attention spanned Britain, one very different from the one
she ruled over as prime minister for more than 11 years from 1979 to late 1990.
(I was born and raised in England, grew up there, and am
very familiar with Mrs. Thatcher and the controversy and infamy she engendered.)
Ms. Lloyd makes Baroness Thatcher a sympathetic figure, one haunted by her own
reverie, loneliness and singularity. "The Iron Lady", which is a series of
flashbacks and memories in the mind of its chief subject, showcases a powerful
woman as vulnerable figure, offering a side of Mrs. Thatcher that's either
invented or one rarely displayed while in office as the leader of the
Conservative Party at 10 Downing Street. "The Iron Lady" has a faded gloss
even as it buffs up a shine on the longest-serving British prime minister of the
20th century.
Less an autobiographical film than a kind, rounded look at an independent-minded
woman of ambition, passion, scorn and often withering indifference and
insensitivity, Ms. Lloyd's drama covers Thatcher's political highs and lows as
one of the Tories -- from her triumph and re-election as the only woman prime
minister in Britain, to the garbage strike in the early 1980s, the Falklands
War, her privatization initiatives, the tax-the-poor-at-higher-rates outrage
riots against the "Toffs" in 1990 and beyond, the Brixton and Tottenham riots of
the mid-1980s -- yet somehow manages to avoid the National Union Of Mineworkers
strike and Arthur Scargill's fight against Mrs. Thatcher. The history of
Mrs. Thatcher's political reign is something that is glanced at more than
seriously examined, yet Ms. Lloyd is brave enough to even put a film like this
on the big screen, and quickly spotlight the prime minister's many undignified
moments, but I wish she had delved deeper.
Still, Meryl Streep is impeccable in the title role, a sly perfectionist at
mimicry and timing down to every breath, cough and inflection -- and done so
effortlessly that you submit once again to her greatness. Ms. Streep may
have performed her best mimic here of those she's done prior, and while it isn't
her best performance, it's one of her better efforts. Expect her to be
called out as an Oscar nominee in eleven days' time. "The Iron Lady" -- in
England the working class and poor called Mrs. Thatcher a lot worse than the
film's title the Soviets coined for her -- travels in circular directions, and
is a polite, generous and genteel-natured look at Thatcher's relationship with
perception, reality, her own image and that of her relationship with best friend
and husband Denis (played wonderfully by Jim Broadbent).
"The Iron Lady" covers the bases of her family background as a doer not a feeler
adequately enough though not going beyond the surface. The film doesn't
stretch its focus or ambitions beyond the shadowy recollections and ruminations
of its central figure. In a way Ms. Lloyd's film is stuck in a time warp,
although it recognizes that in many quarters in Britain Ms. Thatcher, even with
the passage of time, is still a radioactive and polarizing figure. More
than a few Brits, for example, expressed regret that Mrs. Thatcher escaped harm
in a Brighton hotel bombing by the Irish Republican Army in 1983.
In "Shame"
co-screenwriter Abi Morgan's script, "The Iron Lady" is less revisionist than
romanticized, and any reverence it has for Lady Thatcher is shown in actual
archival footage, off-screen voices and the thoughts of Ms. Thatcher herself.
It is useful to remember that this film happens entirely in the mind of Mrs.
Thatcher, and she is not necessarily its most reliable narrator. Students
of history will be keenly aware of this, even if members of the current
generation may not.
In a sense "The Iron Lady" plays like part of a travelogue through Ms. Streep's
acting career. Ms. Streep has become more famous over the last 20 years
for playing famous or real-life people ("Music Of The Heart",
"Devil Wears Prada",
"Manchurian Candidate", "Adaptation.",
"Julie &
Julia") than for playing character roles. Renewed adoration for
her acting acumen is not without merit. Most interestingly, there's a
scene in Ms. Lloyd's film in Mrs. Thatcher's early days in the House Of Commons
during Question Time, where Ms. Streep looks not like the prime minister but
like Ms. Streep in a baby powder blue suit and hat. This scene is one of
the film's surreal moments, and feels like a tribute to the actress. If
it's not the image of Streep's Thatcher playing Ms. Streep herself, it's pretty
darn close. One may argue that Ms. Streep always plays herself first
before her characters, but it's hard to deny that her technique achieves the
results that count, for this film would be ever more lost without her grandeur.
Of the latest films to chronicle controversial or notorious political figures
("J. Edgar",
"The Conquest"),
"The Iron Lady" floats uneasily somewhere in the
middle. Ms. Lloyd's film could do more with the events it portrays, but
overall "The Iron Lady" lacks energy. You can feel the life of this film
ebb away, scene by scene, growing more tired as Mrs. Thatcher grows old.
With: Olivia Colman, Alexandra Roach, Harry Lloyd, Iain Glen, Emma Dewhurst,
Victoria Bewick.
"The Iron Lady" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association
Of America for some violent images and brief nudity. The film's running time
is one hour and 45 minutes.
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