The Iron Lady

[skizzerflake]

I saw this and was underwhealmed. Yes, Meryl Streep does her usual great job at yet another accent. With lots of makeup, hairspray and costumery, she channels Margaret Thatcher quite well. The problem with the movie is that it's a muddled mess. As a bio-pic, only about half of the flick is the bio part. The other half is a very unflattering characterization of contemporary Thatcher in the grips of dementia. She's constantly having conversations with her dead husband Denis, who doesn't seem to have much going for him either, although he can be forgiven, because, after all, he's dead, or at least he's dead some of the time.

The bio part of the pic is flashbacks to her career as a rising conservative, a new Prime Minister who was the British mirror to Ronald Reagan, to her later years as PM when she is portrayed as having become so intransigent that she was an embarrassment to fellow tories.

The movie flashes back and forth between past and "present" often enough that I began to think I was suffering from dementia. Furthermore, since, at some point in the halcyon past, Denis actually WAS alive, that got confusing. It's usually not a good thing for a movie to have a character where you don't know whether he's alive or dead. I don't know whether Thatcherites see this flick as a reminder of a great era or too much of an airing of dirty linen, but for me, I was almost as glad to see the movie be over as I would be to see Thatcher's reign over.

 

[TLS Guy]

I saw this and was underwhealmed. Yes, Meryl Streep does her usual great job at yet another accent. With lots of makeup, hairspray and costumery, she channels Margaret Thatcher quite well. The problem with the movie is that it's a muddled mess. As a bio-pic, only about half of the flick is the bio part. The other half is a very unflattering characterization of contemporary Thatcher in the grips of dementia. She's constantly having conversations with her dead husband Denis, who doesn't seem to have much going for him either, although he can be forgiven, because, after all, he's dead, or at least he's dead some of the time.

The bio part of the pic is flashbacks to her career as a rising conservative, a new Prime Minister who was the British mirror to Ronald Reagan, to her later years as PM when she is portrayed as having become so intransigent that she was an embarrassment to fellow tories.

The movie flashes back and forth between past and "present" often enough that I began to think I was suffering from dementia. Furthermore, since, at some point in the halcyon past, Denis actually WAS alive, that got confusing. It's usually not a good thing for a movie to have a character where you don't know whether he's alive or dead. I don't know whether Thatcherites see this flick as a reminder of a great era or too much of an airing of dirty linen, but for me, I was almost as glad to see the movie be over as I would be to see Thatcher's reign over.

This film I would bet is a nasty left wing slander. Thatcher in recent poles was voted the most competent prime minister of the post WWII era. She was one of the UK's greatest prime ministers.

 

[skizzerflake]

This film I would bet is a nasty left wing slander. Thatcher in recent poles was voted the most competent prime minister of the post WWII era. She was one of the UK's greatest prime ministers.

It really doesn't have much to say about the politics. It portrays Britain as tottering on the edge of IRA-caused anarchy, being dominated by trade unions and close to bankruptcy and implies that things got better under Thatcher, without really addressing why or how. That's what bothers me the most. I have a grudging respect for how she came into the boy's club of British politics as a woman and managed to put their economy back on a better path and most of that got lost in the movie. Too much time was spent watching her walk around her flat and converse with her deceased husband and not enough on why the title of the movie was "The Iron Lady". The film's lack of discussion of the politics and policies may represent a desire to not acknowledge what she did (although it is clear that she was a devout conservative) or it may just be a lousy script. I'm not sure which it was.

 

[TLS Guy]

It really doesn't have much to say about the politics. It portrays Britain as tottering on the edge of IRA-caused anarchy, being dominated by trade unions and close to bankruptcy and implies that things got better under Thatcher, without really addressing why or how. That's what bothers me the most. I have a grudging respect for how she came into the boy's club of British politics as a woman and managed to put their economy back on a better path and most of that got lost in the movie. Too much time was spent watching her walk around her flat and converse with her deceased husband and not enough on why the title of the movie was "The Iron Lady". The film's lack of discussion of the politics and policies may represent a desire to not acknowledge what she did (although it is clear that she was a devout conservative) or it may just be a lousy script. I'm not sure which it was.

I can set the scene for you.

The previous conservative prime minister Ted Heath had really made a mess of things. Margaret Thatcher had the education portfolio in that government. She stopped the free milk distribution and the left labelled her "Thatcher the Snatcher!"

Ted Heath let the unions run riot. The communist Union leader Arthur Skargill had the whip hand and was getting into the ascendancy.

The miners strike brought the fall of the Heath government. At the following election Labor came to power under James Callahan. The strikes spread and the British auto makers went bankrupt. British Leyland went bankrupt and were nationalized. They took a leaf out of the East German book and trumpeted the "people's car": - the Austin Metro. This was one of the worlds worst cars and very ugly to boot. It looked like a communist creation, which it was. It was an absolute packet of trouble and the wheels literally prone to fall off.

The strikes spread and Skargill worked up the left and the unions to a frenzy. Against all odds, with a tough platform Margaret Thatcher became the leader of the conservative party.

The Callahan labor government fell with the severe effects of strikes in the public service sector. Margaret Thatcher was way behind in poles, advocating a scorched earth policy against the unions.

Margaret Thatcher was interviewed on Panorama by a veteran and very liberal anchor, Robin Day.

Mr Day asked Margaret Thatcher if her policies would not lead to increased confrontation with the unions.

Margaret Thatcher replied: - "When the garbage is piling up in the streets and the people can't bury their dead, I have a lot to confront."

She soared in the polls and the rest is history.

The interesting thing is that the prime minister furthest to the right since WWII achieved what the left was always wanting and could never achieve. Quickly she made Britain pretty much a classless society and smashed the class barriers.

The left really do want an insidious and nasty oligarchy.

The unions have never regained a fraction of their power and influence since the Thatcher administrations and continue in decline.

 

[skizzerflake]

I can set the scene for you.

The previous conservative prime minister Ted Heath had really made a mess of things. Margaret Thatcher had the education portfolio in that government. She stopped the free milk distribution and the left labelled her "Thatcher the Snatcher!"

Ted Heath let the unions run riot. The communist Union leader Arthur Skargill had the whip hand and was getting into the ascendancy.....

I know the history...it's the script that stunk. It was neither a re-telling of the Thatcher drama nor a critical indictment of her policies. It was just awkward and dumb.

 

[zhimbo]

This film I would bet is a nasty left wing slander.

The reviews I've read that touched on this said generally say the film had no apparent point of view on politics. Ebert's review said

"Director Phyllida Lloyd and screenwriter Abi Morgan seem to have little clear idea of what they think about Thatcher, or what they want to say...
[...]
Few people were neutral in their feelings about her, except the makers of this picture. They approach Thatcher as a figure in a time-honored biographical template in which a convenient fictional mechanism allows the heroine to revisit key chapters in her life so that we can understand that it was quite a life, indeed. "

I haven't seen it, but that seems to be the thrust of a lot of the reviews.

 

[Alex2507]

This film I would bet is a nasty left wing slander.

I doubt that. They portrayed her as always being right whether she was at odds with her own or the opposing party. Whoever disagreed with her was portrayed as being some combination of stupid, treacherous and condescending.

I know the history...

I don't and I didn't know some of the words you used earlier in this thread.
Is that type of language really necessary?

I didn't like the way they told her story either. I wanted to know more about her life and way less about her dementia. I didn't find it reasonable that all her opponents were made to look like dopes and she was always made to look like the only one with any integrity and intelligence.

Watching all the footage about her suffering from dementia was not my idea of a good time.
Not a fun film to watch. Johnny English was way better.

 

[Rickster71]

Therein lies the rub.
It would be too obvious and ultimately ineffective to attack her politically.
So it was done in a more subtle way, with ad hominems.
Take one of the most powerful, historic women of the Twentieth Century, and Simply use 50% of the movie to portray her as a woman with Alzheimer's.