The Iron Lady (2011)
Review of The Iron Lady (2011), directed by Phyllida Lloyd
One night I was really bored at 11 pm, so I decided to watch a movie. It was a game of Russian Roulette essentially, since I decided that once I opened my Amazon Prime Video, I was going to watch the very first movie that was on the recommended list. And I don’t know what joke fate was playing on me because it was The Iron Lady.
I’ve been on this strange kick of watching Meryl Streep movies by accident, and here I was watching yet another Meryl Streep movie. She had the Julia Child voice on this one though for a time, which, although I understand is a real person’s voice, I simply just can’t vibe with. I hate to mean, I’m just not used to it at all and so it sounds grating.
A disclaimer before I get too deep into this review is that I’m not British nor do I know anything about the political issues that Britain faces. I’m just an ignorant American when it comes to these issues, so when I watch a movie like this, real figures don’t actually mean anything to me. I do know that Thatcher was like Ronald Reagan, as her era of being PM was one wildly conservative in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
Anyways, with this being said, let’s dive into this review.
Content
The way that this movie is set up is that we start off immediately at the end of Thatcher’s life, when she has dementia or Alzheimer’s and keeps imagining her dead husband being right there with her. This isn’t very clear at the start of the film, but as we progress through the storyline, we begin to see the true nature of her mental affliction.
She still believes she’s in office at times, while her daughter, with tears in her eyes, has to keep explaining that her father, Thatcher’s husband, is dead. We then have these moments juxtaposed with the early moments of Thatcher’s life, such as her learning politics from her father and working in the store during WWII. We also see how she’s a brilliant woman, getting into Oxford, and how she majors in chemistry. I would’ve loved to see more of her life as a chemist and student at Oxford.
For me, who could care less about the politics, found the strongest moments to actually be her girlhood. I wouldn’t be mad if this was a film about her coming-of-age and deciding to go into politics. But we quickly transition out of those moments and into her meeting her husband and then being ridiculed for being a housewife going into politics.
There is blatant sexism against her, as well as men controlling how she must appear in order to be voted in as the Prime Minister. As much as we want to hate Thatcher’s politics, we must admit it was an achievement for a woman like her to be voted into office during that era, although it would be more impressive if, say, she was a woman of color.
Meryl Streep really humanizes such a controversial figure, that’s for sure. Although I was frustrated with the flash-forward flash-back style of the film, since it felt too jarring and unnatural to me to cross time and space in such a manner, Streep really made the film come alive.
We focus too much on the aspect where she has dementia, which Streep plays brilliantly, which for me as a viewer makes me feel disappointed. I wanted more of Thatcher’s career, not of her imagining her dead husband. While it does show this moment of decay from her former glory, I felt that there was too much of it and there needed to be a balance.
The movie also felt very sterile, if that’s the right word for it. It can completely go in one direction, showing how Thatcher appealed to the conservatives of Great Britain, or it can be safe. They chose safe. I see how that was the good decision financially since no one except conservatives would want to see this movie, but it also felt like it was depicting Thatcher in a way that was carefully constructed and clean. Thatcher is a controversial figure in British political history, but if you were walking away from this movie, you’d think it’s only because she’s a woman.
Overall Thoughts
I think this biopic could’ve been great if it wasn’t pitched as about the life of Thatcher herself. It dwells too much on the end of her life, which leaves behind plenty of opportunities to educate about the first female PM in UK history and the problems that faced the era.
They did a good job humanizing her, that’s for sure, but it feels like they could’ve depicted her in a way that gives in to the criticism. Show why she is both loved and hated. Let us see all sides. With the cast that the movie had, we could’ve had major potential, but it unfortunately falls in execution.
