“The Iron Lady” is an utter travesty, both in content and in form. When a film is this bad, and a critic has to give a sense of why, it’s difficult to know where to begin. How about this: The climax of this movie about one of the most important people — not just women, but people — of the 20th century comes when Margaret Thatcher decides to throw out her dead husband’s clothes.
That might work if the film had focused on the relationship between the former prime minister of Great Britain and her husband of over half a century. But there’s no emotional buildup, and so no emotional payoff. Sitting there, realizing that this was the climax, I was simply dumbfounded.
| On screen |
| ‘The Iron Lady’ |
| 0.5 out of 4 stars |
| Stars: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Alexandra Roach |
| Director: Phyllida Lloyd |
| Rated: PG-13 for some violent images and brief nudity |
| Running time: 105 minutes |
You might say “The Iron Lady” centers, then, on the career of Britain’s first female prime minister. She was a controversial figure, and remains so. But to call this film “one-sided” would be to suggest that it has more substance than it actually does.
Meryl Streep turns in a typically professional performance; there’s no denying she has been made to look like, and certainly sounds like, the woman who ruled Britain from 1979 to 1990. I can’t fault her for a preposterous script or amateurish directing. Yet I wonder: Could she have connected with the audience in such a way to make us at least forget for a moment the film’s many problems?
What kind of character is she playing? It’s a question the actress must have considered. But it’s hard to see why the filmmakers wanted to bring Maggie to the big screen. “One doesn’t seem to have any sense of accomplishment,” the old, dotty Thatcher says toward the end of the film.
And according to “The Iron Lady,” she shouldn’t. She caused the biggest unemployment rate since the 1930s, we learn — but we don’t learn that it, along with inflation, went down. Really, no policy positions or decisions of leadership are explored here, other than the Falklands War — which is covered very superficially.
But then, director Phyllida Lloyd — whose only other feature credit is “Mamma Mia!” — shows no understanding of the times. Thatcher is repeatedly shown against a wall of men; if one believes the film, she was the only female member of Parliament during her time there. But there were nearly 20 when she started, and more than 60 when she retired.
The worst thing about this film, in fact, is that it traffics in the worst kind of anti-female tropes about powerful women. “Mommy, please don’t go,” her children say when she’s first elected an MP.
The woman born Margaret Roberts won a place at Oxford on scholarship, studied science, and became a chemist. She became friends with many of the leading free-market thinkers of her time. The woman on screen gets all her ideas from her father.
I can’t say that, at least, Thatcher haters might enjoy this film. It has little aesthetic sense. There’s a strange focus on Thatcher’s rings; what the metaphoric meaning is supposed to be is unclear.
This film was written by, directed by, and stars women. But it’s the most anti-female film I’ve seen in quite some time.
