The Iron Lady

The Iron Lady is a muddled disaster of a movie about Margaret Thatcher. 


It pulls you in opposing directions and you worry that the director doesn't really know in which one she wants you to go. 


A series of flashbacks on Thatcher's rise to power portray a resolute young woman, brilliantly articulate, who stands up to the male chauvinist establishment and does what she thinks is right for her country without flinching. It seems that we are supposed to have a generally favourable opinion of her, all the more so since little time is wasted on opposing points of view or the disastrous results of some of her policies. Yet the flashbacks which detail her political success story are presented as little episodes of remembrance in the life of a distressed, demented old woman abandoned by her son, without friends, drinking heavily, talking incessantly to her dead husband and worrying about disposing of his clothes. Fully half the movie, I swear, is devoted to following the poor woman around her empty house towards the end of her life, leaving you with an overwhelming feeling of miserable unhappiness and failure. 


Of course, Meryl Streep is amazing in the role of Margaret Thatcher. And the make-up artists Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland really deserved their Oscar. In fact, you feel obliged to wonder, uncharitably, if it wasn't Streep's perfect acting and Coulier and Helland's exceptional make-up that resulted in the emphasis on the lost, demented side of Thatcher, which they were able to render so well. Kind of sad, if that's the case.  It'd be nice if these movies actually meant something.