The Iron Lady

Ever since “The Queen”, I have been interested in British biographical films. “The Iron Lady” however was not all that special. Sure, Meryl Streep was amazing in her performance but that was to be expected. The focus of the film was on Streep and therefore the story and post-production decisions lacked basis. It was exhausting as I tried to interpret the images that were edited on the screen.

Meryl Streep was the highlight of this movie and evidence of this fact is the Oscars that “The Iron Lady” won. Streep won Best Actress and the film won Best Makeup. I am not saying that those awards were baseless but rather that the attention of the filmmakers was to fully recreate Margret Thatcher on screen. Because of the make-up, it was hard to recognize Streep and the aging of her character for the 2008 scenes was very well done. The filmmakers succeeded in making Meryl Streep into Thatcher but it had a cost. The true-life story of Prime Minister Thatcher had the potential to be entertaining on the movie screen but the filmmakers went too far on creating a non-linear plot and inner turmoil for the main character. It distracted from the story events that are seen in flashback. When doing a non-linear film, the focus must be on the flashbacks or the events that are looked back upon. That was the case with both “J. Edgar” and “The Social Network” and it worked. This movie was different because I felt that more emphasis was put on Thatcher in 2008 than on her career in the past. If the film is biographical, it must have historical events well depicted. “The Iron Lady” felt preachy and the ironic thing is that it is hard to articulate the theme it was trying to preach. The only message that I gleamed was how hard Thatcher fought throughout her life only to become the very thing she said she would not become when she got married. Quite depressing if you ask me. One might argue that both “The Social Network” and “J. Edgar” also had pessimistic endings but those movies had its entertaining moments. In watching “The Iron Lady”, I wasn't as entertained as I was overwhelmed by the editing. Sometimes, there seemed to be no purpose in some of the images and cuts that we saw. It was emotionally draining trying to interpret the various quick shots that the film had. Some the events depicted in the film are out of order chronologically and that bugs me. On a more positive note, I had never heard of the Falklands War until this film. Until that point in the film, I was wondering where Thatcher’s successes as Prime Minister were. I like the positive feeling during the montage depicting the economic boom of the 80’s but I felt it was too short. Most of the flashback images of the life of Thatcher were full of conflict and that affects your spirit after a while. We rarely saw her in a victorious light. I liked seeing Jim Broadbent and Roger Allam in this movie. Broadbent was very good alongside Streep. He provided the perfect tone of humor for this movie.

If you want to see the movie because of Meryl Streep then you won’t be disappointed. The acting in “The Iron Lady” is great but story-wise, the film has multiple flaws. Its theme is somewhat convoluted and the editing decisions lacked subtext. Metaphorically speaking, this could have been a great film but you can’t throw all your eggs in one basket even if Meryl Streep is balancing the basket on her head.

3 Stars