The Iron Lady

Margaret Thatcher is so misunderstood. Like Sarah Palin. Or Karla Homolka.

Nominated for:
Best Actress - Maryl Streep


Also nominated for:
Best Makeup

The Iron Lady is a movie unworthy of Maryl Streep's divine-ness.

This film desperately tries to gain sympathy for Thatcher with soft-focus lenses, a cutsey musical score, and lots of shots of a senile old lady tottering around her ritzy apartment. Needless to say, I'm not buying it. The script is full of clevery-forshadowy lines, but there is never any context provided for all the (very serious) historical events covered in the film's timespan. Thatcher is painted as a kind of idealistic innocent caught in the middle of some crazy IRA rioters, and the social problems (mass riots, rampant unemployment, rapid inflation, starvation protests) directly caused by her controversial and cruel policies become somehow divorced from her political responsibility.

The few times when she is shown making decisions, she is surrounded by a bunch of men who simply explain all the various issues at hand. Thatcher acts completely overwhelmed, as if she's just a little girl caught up in a world beyond her comprehension. Then the whole thing 'touchingly' culminates with crazy old Thatcher sorting through a box of memories muttering "all I wanted was to be happy!" Cue the vomit.

Whether this is a conservative propaganda film or just a failed attempt at being edgy, I can't tell. Maryl Streep is fabulous, but everything else stinks.

Eli