Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
Starring: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Olivia Colman, Anthony
Head
Released by Film 4
Out: 6th January
There are those people in history for whom an impartial judgement
cannot be reached – the effect they had
on a situation, moment or era, so sharp and divisive that the term ‘love or
loathe’ seems invented for them. There can be little doubt that Margaret
Thatcher, Prime Minster of the United Kingdom from 1983 to 1992 is the
dictionary-definition of such. She was either the needed steely back-boned matriarch
of a sexist fairweather cabinet or the shrill-voiced, blinkered harpy who decimated
an entire generation and caused an historic divide between rich and poor. Good fodder then for a screen biography?
Dramatic-bait aside, the actual pragmatic problem of telling such
a life-story is that the waiting masses will already have sharpened their
quills. Too loving and it’s a whitewash, too vitriolic, it’s a hatchet-job. However
if you aren’t careful then any attempt to be wholly objective comes across as sitting
on the proverbial fence, merely paying lip-service to a succession of vignettes and
cliff-notes.
"...audiences drawn by the Thatcher legacy aren’t there to watch a film more comfortable in dwelling on the nuances of senile dementia (however compelling that would be elsewhere) at the expense of the advertised character-study of the main character. It’s like getting Hollywood A-List to do the Hitler story and then noting that his teenage years as a frustrated painter are really fascinating, aren’t they? "
I recently asked the film’s director Phyllida Lloyd about that, suggesting whatever the intentions, the project could be seen as Holy Grail or poisoned chalice – a film where you’ll please no-one
“We’re not doing a bio-pic. Eventually people will find that
out, that it’s a film about something else. I think of it more in epic terms. You
wouldn’t think ‘Oh, we have to be careful about this Hamlet, or this Macbeth,
we better make him nice enough, but on the other hand selfish’... we wanted to
play every moment as if you’re showing her flaws are the same things as her
strengths. Her passionate conviction is the flipside of her inability to
listen. We weren’t thinking that we had to tread this really carefully...” she
shrugs, almost puzzled by the question.
All well and good – if somewhat bizarrely at odds with the
finished result and the marketing - but the truth is audiences drawn by the
Thatcher legacy aren’t there to watch a film more comfortable in dwelling on the nuances of
senile dementia (however compelling that would be elsewhere) at the expense of the advertised character-study of the main character. It’s
like getting Hollywood A-List to do the Hitler story and then noting that his teenage
years as a frustrated painter are really fascinating, aren’t they?
Sadly, The Iron Lady - not the first attempt to cram the massive
persona of the Conservative leader into a moving frame, nor, sadly, the best,
despite front-loading the project with one of the finest actresses of her
generation – misses much of the potential meat. Streep is one of those truly gifted actresses,
who can disappear into great roles and let the performance speak for itself,
but here Lloyd gives her leading lady a scrapbook rather than a tome to work
from. If Spitting Image skewered the persona, The Iron Lady just prods it
gently and then goes off with a perturbed look on its face, as if it’s just
eaten a brussell sprout and can’t decide whether they liked it. Revenge may be
a dish best served cold, but not this soufflé.
Streep gets able support from Jim Broadbent as husband Denis and
Olivia Colman (currently much-praised for Tyrannosaur) dons an hypnoticallylarge
prosthetic nose to play daughter Carol. Familiar faces Anthony Head, John
Sessions, Nicholas Farrell and Richard E Grant populate the thespian equivalent
of a fantasy-football cabinet and each have their moment in the spotlight,
though none of it feels particularly impassioned. We already know the story and
here we don’t even get the legend.
Streep will not only survive this experience but is already
being lauded for a season of awards and nominations and it’s hard to begrudge
her such notices given her abilities. However, director Lloyd, previously best
known for the big-screen Mamma Mia!, may wish to decide if she wants to go loud
and proud or quiet and nuanced. In The Iron Lady, she attempts to do both and loses
the film’s entire focus, ultimately failing to achieve either.
2/5
