Movie Review: "The Iron Lady"

"The Iron Lady": B-. Margaret Thatcher was elected to serve three terms as the Prime Minister of England, that country's highest office. She was the first woman to hold that position, and she did so from 1979 to 1990. Even as a young girl she was never shy about stating her position, even when her audience was comprised of only men. Meryl Streep consumes the character of this woman, who became known as the "Iron Lady" because of her unwillingness to compromise with her opponents. Thatcher's term as PM coincided with President Ronald Regan's years in the White House (1981-1989), but they had a lot more than that in common. Both leaders were steadfast in their conservatism, and were highly critical of unions and the propensity of previous central governments of their respective countries to solve problems by throwing money after them. Their dual mantras were accountability and not spending more than you take in.

At first blush Thatcher's life would seem to be a difficult one to portray in a movie. Many of her finest moments, such as her determination in 1982 to send the British navy thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean to route the Agentinian army from the Falkland Islands, were realized by decisions she made behind a desk. Her private life was not particularly flashy or unusual. The decision to tell Thatcher's bio on film may have been primarily based on Streep's acting ability. When you see her on the screen, she IS Margaret Thatcher.

For some reason the film makers decided to unveil the story by introducing us to the main character after she has lost much of her mental acuity. She has breakfast with her husband and carries on conversations with him throughout the day, even though he has been dead for months. Margaret can't bring herself to dispose of her husband's suits or other articles of clothing, because he may need them. She forgets that her son is living in South Africa. She lives independently but is under the worried eye of her daughter who checks in with her on a regular basis. Her mind carries her back to earlier times when she was growing up as the daughter of a grocer, and later as she became a fearless voice of the Conservative Party in the UK.

I believe this story telling approach, to focus on Thatcher's character as a dottering old woman merely to be used as a getaway point for the many flashbacks, was a mistake. The fact that Thatcher is probably a victim of the onset of dementia does not add anything of value, other than an opportunity for actor Jim Broadbent to provide some light-hearted on-screen moments as the dearly departed Denis Thatcher. The film viewers would have been better served by seeing more of Margaret as a young woman and as a novice politician rising to the top of her country's government. You would think that there would be so much to tell about her eleven years as Prime Minister that little time, if any, would be spent on her post-retirement. Yet, unfortunately, that is exactly what this movie delivers - - an overdose of her days as a diminished senior citizen.