New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

There is always a certain level of distance kept between us and Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, which prevents us from really caring about her as a character. That comes as a surprise given the amazing life this woman has led, which should inherently draw us into her as a person. In 1979, she became the United Kingdom’s first female prime minister, allowing her to further cement her reputation as a strong-willed, decisive (though not always popular) leader who firmly believed that people should just “do.” According to the film, she prided herself on action and results instead of feelings, and perhaps that’s why our emotional connection to her is limited. On paper and in history, Thatcher the woman and Prime Minister is fascinating and significant; on film, where pathos, mood, tone and imaginings play a much larger role, Thatcher the character leaves much to be desired. Perhaps we’re betting off learning about her in print.

Like many speculative biopics, including Clint Eastwood’s recent J. Edgar, this one begins in or around the present day and works its way back through the title character’s life via flashbacks. We first see a slow and feeble-minded Thatcher (Meryl Streep, looking eerily like the real “MT”) buying a pint of milk at a local convenient store. She comes home and tells her husband Denis (Jim Broadbent) the price went up again, which is one of the ways she proves she’s still in touch with the people. In touch with the people she may be, but the same cannot be said of reality. Showing the early signs of dementia, Thatcher often confuses the present with the past and she doesn’t always remember that Denis died years ago. In fact, her family has been on her case to pack up his things so she can move on.

The film uses Thatcher’s fragile mental condition as a springboard to jump to different parts of her life and political career. The younger of two children, she was born into a Methodist family in Grantham, where her father was a grocer and mayor. She paid close attention to his speeches, which would eventually shape her own conservative ideals. A hard worker who was constantly determined to improve herself, Thatcher attended Oxford University and, at 25, became the youngest and only female candidate to run for a safe Labour seat in 1950 and 1951. Though she failed to win both times, she did meet her future husband in the process, but before agreeing to be his wife, she vowed she would never become some idle woman who didn’t speak her mind and whose only legacy would be a clean set of dishes. Bottom line: she wasn’t going to let her sex limit her voice or her ambition.

That notion became clearer when she decided to run for Conservative Party Leader in 1975 and eventually Prime Minister four years later. She was aided by Gordon Reece (Roger Allam), a journalist and television producer, who counseled her as a political strategist, and we get the usual montage where Thatcher is groomed and conditioned, via speech lessons and a variety of new hairdos, to “put the ‘great’ back in Great Britain.” In the wake of widespread trade union strikes and the Labour Party’s ill-conceived attempt to control inflation, Thatcher promised a new beginning and won the vote. Her term would last for 11 years and become the longest of any 20th century prime minister in the UK.

Continued:       1       2