Director: Phyllidia Lloyd
Year: 2011
Stars: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Olivia Colman, Alexandra Roach, Harry Lloyd
I wasn't expecting much from this. I had agreed to go to the cinema to see it as some friends had expressed an interest, but I was pretty sure I was going to get a fluffy movie that wasn't really about Margaret Thatcher at all.
Well, this wasn't exactly right. The Iron Lady does acknowledge Margaret Thatcher's career, and that not everybody was happy with the political decisions she made. What it doesn't do is investigate these in any depth. It spends half its time focusing on Margaret Thatcher's life today, after the death of her husband (Broadbent).
The problem with The Iron Lady is that it feels like two different movies, and it doesn't really know which one it wants to be. If it was a movie about Thatcher's days as Prime Minister, looking at the pros and cons of what she instigated, it could have been very interesting. If it was a movie about a woman dealing with the death of her husband, it didn't need to be about Margaret Thatcher.
What is good is Meryl Streep's portrayal of Thatcher. I've never been a massive fan of Streep, but she does do a very good job here. I thought I was watching Thatcher, not Streep. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of Jim Broadbent. I usually love watching Broadbent, but here he's too busy being Jim Broadbent, and not Denis Thatcher.
Rating: 3 out of 5
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