The Iron Lady - Review
pepper - january 12
THE UNFATHOMABLE, TRANSCENDENTAL,
incomprehensibly talented Meryl Streep does it again! As Oscar season rolls around, audiences gird their loins once more for the master of characterisation.
Meryl Streep dons a wig, a set of teeth, a pitch perfect British accent, a pair of pearls, and then somehow defies imagination to complete the transformation in the highly anticipated portrayal of Margaret Thatcher - The Iron Lady.
While Streep’s performance is front and centre of every frame and is the real drawcard for this film, it is also the choices made by the scriptwriter (Abi Morgan, Shame) and the director (Phyllida Lloyd, Mamma Mia) that give this film unexpected sensitivity and insight.
Rather than a straightforward biopic, The Iron Lady centres on Margaret Thatcher as a lonely widow suffering from the early stages of dementia.
The current world events, namely the London bombings in 2005, incite flashbacks of different critical moments in her life.
With a strong supporting cast, in particular Jim Broadbent as her doting husband Denis, Thatcher’s motivations for entering politics are explored, along with her youth as a grocer’s daughter and her initial setbacks and gradual ascension to Prime Minister of Britain.
Some of the joys of The Iron Lady are the use of original footage from the era along with home movies, photographs and allusions to certain mysteries such as her publicly scrutinised friendship with Ronald Reagan.
There are also painfully poignant humanising moments of Thatcher’s relationship with her husband and children.
Seemingly all too brief, the extraordinary life of one of the world’s most controversial and enigmatic leaders will always be difficult to condense into a film.
While not without its faults, and certainly shying away from making any grand statement or opinion on Thatcher’s reign, the performances are first rate and the story is complex and completely fascinating making The Iron Lady an important and entertaining piece of cinema.
review by libby munro