“It used to be about trying to do something. Now it’s about trying to be someone.”
Meryl Streep is a name that is almost universally recognized after over four decades of cinema. Margaret Thatcher is one of the biggest female political figures of the last century. Bringing the two together in film feels almost predictably apt. The problem with that however, is that after putting all your “ducks in a row” by having the right talent available to make what we can only hope will be the best biopic film you can then you have to actually make the movie, and this is where I feel the film takes fault.
It’s not unheard of for movies to try and tell more than one narrative within one film, but it is also not unheard of for them to fail at pulling it off. The Iron Lady, I’m sad to say, is one of the films that isn’t able to pull it off for the reason that while both plots have their own merit one is given more importance than the other which therefore leaves the viewer in a state of limbo whenever we leave that plot to service the less compelling one.
The Iron Lady follows the life and career of Margaret Thatcher up to becoming the first and very influential female Prime Minister of the England. It also at the same time tells the story of an eldery lady continuing to grieve for the loss of her husband and finding a way to move on, this lady just happens to be Margaret Thatcher.
While I refuse to say that the story of Thatcher’s rise in politics is unimportant, the way this movie takes the long way round to tell us that story, in the smallest of doses, makes it feel as if it is unimportant. While I personally enjoyed watching Thatcher deal with her own emotional turmoil and the moment of true catharsis which came from her dealing with her grief the flashbacks that she had relating to her life, and career, felt almost unnecessary and unrelated in most cases. By the time I reached the end of the film I started to wonder as if these flashbacks were at all about her husband or just about regretting not being the doting wife she refused to be and hating herself for becoming this character, via her actions and principles as she says? But I don’t think so. I truly believe that the emotions came first and the biopic of the life of Margaret Thatcher was an afterthought by the writers.
With all that said Meryl Streep as well as Jim Broadbent deliver wonderful performances that will work well as part of a montage when each of them begin to win lifetime achievement awards but at the same time barely even try to rise up to previous works, or even some of the best of 2011 films.
It is almost creepy how much Meryl Streep looks like Thatcher in the film. Although I haven't seen the film yet, I do like hearing about the way in which the film presents her story – it at least tries to be a bit unconventional.
It does try. But the thing about trying is that you're never sure if it'll work. I don't think it did. Regardless it'll do it's due diligence and makes sure that talent like Elisabeth Olson in Martha Marcy May Marlene isn't nominated this year for her outstanding performance.