Health & Fitness
MOVIE REVIEW: 'The Iron Lady' Fails To Illuminate
A spectacular performance by Meryl Streep elevates what would otherwise be a lackluster film.
In many biopics, the subjects are often reduced to parental issues: in "W.," President George W. Bush was seen as mostly driven by his dysfunctional relationship with his father, while Hoover is never able to really free himself from his mother's grip.
In "The Iron Lady," the same sort of treatment is given to the Margaret Thatcher, Great Britain's first female prime minister. The film sees her as mainly formed by her grocer father and his ideals, though we really rarely see him doing anything other than giving speeches as an alderman.
There is thin material to work with, but of course, Meryl Streep, who doesn't play Thatcher as much as channel her, can always be relied upon to elevate such material to a height that would hardly be possible without her.
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The main problem of the film is its emphasis on the present, as an elderly Thatcher goes about her business and hallucinates her deceased husband, playfully imagined by Jim Broadbent. We see little of her formative years as we quickly speed through a childhood defined by World War II and the Blitzkrieg.
Indeed, the film speeds up to her getting elected to parliament. She barely has time to acquaint herself with it before the film again speeds up to about the time of her deciding to run for Prime Minister. And what exactly has she done since resigning as Prime Minister? The film doesn't really answer that question either. You can't help feeling that you missed something important.
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But then you feel like you missed quite a few things. Her family life and relationship with her children are barely referred to, nor are her husband's motivations. Her success seems to be taken for granted; we never really see her struggle and fight against the social and institutional sexism that the film refers to, yet somehow glosses over.
The main problem seems to be that the filmmakers don't seem to know what to make of Thatcher or how exactly to tell the story of such a powerful woman who was also a conservative. It's a shame, because whether you agree with her politics or not, both Thatcher (and Streep) deserve much better material to work with.
