Throw This Iron in the Fire

Having heard wonderful things about Meryl Streep's performance, I decided to check out The Iron Lady, the recent film about former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. I got exactly what I expected... and less.

Meryl Streep is indeed brilliant. That can be said generally, of course, but her work in The Iron Lady was lauded by some as a career-best for her, and that might indeed be true. As with another recent film of hers, Julie & Julia, she plays a real-life person, and does so in a way that transcends mere imitation. She embodies Margaret Thatcher in a deeply convincing way. Streep spends much of the film -- including most of the opening act -- under old-age makeup that further disguises her own features and takes her transformation that much farther. Her voice drops into a different register, her mannerisms are altered, and her accent impeccable. In short, she's so good that she sometimes even makes you forget you're watching Meryl Streep.

And I would suggest that's actually the only reason to watch the movie. As a biography film, it's painfully dull. Thatcher remains a controversial figure in real life, praised or derided for her incredibly austere financial policies. I think the interesting way to approach her tale would have been to show us what in her back story, her formative years, contributed to her staunch belief in such policies. What exactly made her believe she was so right and that everyone else was so wrong?

Instead, we really only get illustrations of the fact that she thought she was so right and everyone else was so wrong. We get a sense of her roller coaster of popularity over her parliamentary career -- from her first run for office to her final ouster as party leader, with many ups and downs in between. But we're never really shown any meat behind any of it. Instead, the "character" of Thatcher isn't humanized by trying to explain her, but rather by trying to make us feel sorry for her. The entire movie is set in a framing device where a nearly-modern-day Thatcher, widowed and battling senility, is tormented by visions of her dead husband. I imagine an American equivalent would be a film about Bill Clinton or Dick Cheney focusing not on their respective philosophies, but rather on their health problems.

Streep's performance is supported by a few other recognizable actors, including Jim Broadbent and Anthony Stewart Head (big cheer from Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans). But ultimately, there's no reason to see this film unless you're a hopeless devotee of one of those actors. It's brilliant work in service of a boring and superficial movie. I grade it a D.