It's difficult to know what to make of a film that has proved nearly as divisive as its protagonist, even among those who haven't even seen it. Viewing the life of former PM and now Baroness Margaret Thatcher from the present day via a series of flashbacks, The Iron Lady has stoked ire from both the Right (who decry the decision to show Thatcher's mental faculties in decline) and the Left (who are howling because, well, it's a film about Margaret Thatcher). Such is the level of opprobrium being heaped upon the film from both sides that it requires Herculean efforts to judge its merits as a film.
Setting aside party politics, The Iron Lady is after all, the story of one of the most powerful and prominent women in recent history, a grocer's daughter who rose to the very top at a time (first elected to parliament in 1959) when women were still largely tied to the domestic sphere. In a century where women in politics are still judged based on their membership of one of the two rival harems camps known as Blair's Babes or Cameron's Cuties (pauses to weep quietly for a moment), a biopic about the UK's longest serving PM who was also the first - and to date, the only - woman to occupy the role, is surely worth celebrating?
Sadly, therein lies the rub. Margaret Thatcher is both a legend in her own time, and the proverbial boogie man - it's virtually impossible to separate the woman from the politics. It's equally implausible to attempt to cover eight decades of remarkable private and notorious public events in barely two hours. Like its obstinate protagonist, The Iron Lady is felled by its own ambition. Thatcher's private life and personal relationships are tantalisingly glimpsed, but never explored. Based on their fleeting treatment, her early life in Grantham, relationship with her parents, courtship with Denis Thatcher, and later family life (particularly with her children) would all make for fascinating films in their own right. By the same token, the Falklands conflict, the riots, the strikes and any number of other nationally significant events during Thatcher's premiership would all form the basis of compelling movies.
Instead, Iron Lady is the cinematic equivalent of a scrapbook, a story told in bits and pieces, but never in depth. It's too brief to do more than gloss over every significant event in her life, not least the assassination of Airey Neave, and often requires a more than passing knowledge of contemporary political figures and events in order to understand the narrative. The result is a film that fails to portray with any depth or conviction either the personal or political history of - love her or loathe her - one of the most significant individuals in British history. The film has prompted complaints that it glosses over the upheaval of the miners' strikes, but one could easily argue that Thatcher's liberal stances on homosexuality and abortion are equally absent, if not more so. Jim Broadbent's Denis Thatcher is relegated to a slightly clownish figment of MT's imagination in the present, and virtually written out of her past.
In fact the film's saving grace is, unsurprisingly, Meryl Streep. Despite the confused and ambivalent material, Streep has crafted a riveting performance (amply supported by Alexandra Roach as Maggie the Younger), somehow managing to believably inhabit the shoes of someone whose story is till being written.
Suffice to say a definitive biopic, if such a thing is possible, will almost certainly have to post date the lady herself, and while I rarely argue in favour of overtly biased film-making, will probably require at least two passes by both her detractors and lionisers. For now, The Iron Lady is a tantalisingly prologue, and abridged version of an engrossing life. It's definitely a celebration of a talented, powerful woman occupying the upper echelons of her profession - but that woman is Streep, not Thatcher.
Setting aside party politics, The Iron Lady is after all, the story of one of the most powerful and prominent women in recent history, a grocer's daughter who rose to the very top at a time (first elected to parliament in 1959) when women were still largely tied to the domestic sphere. In a century where women in politics are still judged based on their membership of one of the two rival harems camps known as Blair's Babes or Cameron's Cuties (pauses to weep quietly for a moment), a biopic about the UK's longest serving PM who was also the first - and to date, the only - woman to occupy the role, is surely worth celebrating?
Sadly, therein lies the rub. Margaret Thatcher is both a legend in her own time, and the proverbial boogie man - it's virtually impossible to separate the woman from the politics. It's equally implausible to attempt to cover eight decades of remarkable private and notorious public events in barely two hours. Like its obstinate protagonist, The Iron Lady is felled by its own ambition. Thatcher's private life and personal relationships are tantalisingly glimpsed, but never explored. Based on their fleeting treatment, her early life in Grantham, relationship with her parents, courtship with Denis Thatcher, and later family life (particularly with her children) would all make for fascinating films in their own right. By the same token, the Falklands conflict, the riots, the strikes and any number of other nationally significant events during Thatcher's premiership would all form the basis of compelling movies.
Instead, Iron Lady is the cinematic equivalent of a scrapbook, a story told in bits and pieces, but never in depth. It's too brief to do more than gloss over every significant event in her life, not least the assassination of Airey Neave, and often requires a more than passing knowledge of contemporary political figures and events in order to understand the narrative. The result is a film that fails to portray with any depth or conviction either the personal or political history of - love her or loathe her - one of the most significant individuals in British history. The film has prompted complaints that it glosses over the upheaval of the miners' strikes, but one could easily argue that Thatcher's liberal stances on homosexuality and abortion are equally absent, if not more so. Jim Broadbent's Denis Thatcher is relegated to a slightly clownish figment of MT's imagination in the present, and virtually written out of her past.
In fact the film's saving grace is, unsurprisingly, Meryl Streep. Despite the confused and ambivalent material, Streep has crafted a riveting performance (amply supported by Alexandra Roach as Maggie the Younger), somehow managing to believably inhabit the shoes of someone whose story is till being written.
Suffice to say a definitive biopic, if such a thing is possible, will almost certainly have to post date the lady herself, and while I rarely argue in favour of overtly biased film-making, will probably require at least two passes by both her detractors and lionisers. For now, The Iron Lady is a tantalisingly prologue, and abridged version of an engrossing life. It's definitely a celebration of a talented, powerful woman occupying the upper echelons of her profession - but that woman is Streep, not Thatcher.