My review of "Iron Lady" from a political as well as artistic viewpoint.
I confess at the outset that I haven't been a student of Margaret Thatcher's politics, except to generally (as a liberal) to be in opposition of them.
However, I saw "The Iron Lady" today and I have learned a dimension about her I did not have before.
Let me explain. Meryl Streep gives the greatest acting of her life so far in this film, IMO. She is magnificent. Yes,she has the look, the slightly gap-toothed overbite, but also so mannerism and walk of the elderly woman she has become and whose existence she is living out (even as we speak), with great insight and tenderness. This is Streep's ultimate performance, IMO. She is superb. She portrays a woman whose present existence is not something any of us would want, a constant going back and forth from reality and delusion (if not outright hallucination).
That said, she is portrayed (in flashback from her present, dementia-dogged existence) in her feisty, most full throated conservative best. She wins because she believes with whole heart that you have to act, not just feel, you have to have a thoughtful roadmap of where you are going and what you are going to do. She succeeds because of her willingness to go all out, with a "can do" and not a defeatist dogma. And though I can and do question the validity of those beliefs, they are presented here as honest ones (as she sees public service).
The film takes us (through flashback) through her several campaigns and the issues that beset her. Here is presented the interesting idea that the poor should pay taxes as well as the better off, which was an idea badly presented by Michele Bachman in her campaign, but tidily wrapped up by Thatcher. Who knew is was hers first? The audience is left to decide the justice of such a regressive policy, but the resulting footage of outrage and violence in the street is vividly presented also.
The film's climax is her scene, later in her political career, with her cabinet, where she totally loses it and starts going over the edge with her rhetoric and descends into meanness and vindictiveness with one of her heretofore strong supporters on her cabinet (humiliating him to the point where he resigns). Former political allies in her own party united to defeat her. You see her go into a rant which becomes a complete character attack, full of spite and pettiness. No wonder her party decided it was time for her to go.
What is so great about Streep is her ability to portray this woman in her dotage as a complex, interesting human being. Streep does what every great actor does: she makes you care about her character. You are deeply involved in her character's fate.
I must add that I loved the scene with Al Haig where she gives him all kinds of sh*t about his complaint of the the Falklands war. Not a defense of him, just the way she took him down, because I never could stand Al Haig!
"Iron Lady" is movie gold but also a really interesting revisiting of the Thatcher era. Go to see it. The acting, script and directing is so impressive you will love it.
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I totally love Meryl Streep, she is a phenomenal master artist, and I would love to see her work in this film. Thanks for your eloquent review.
But, honestly, from my perspective as a lifetime progressive activist, I already know that I will not be able to stomach revisiting the awful nightmare of the hopelessness and despair of that era. It was like some insidious propaganda kicked in all at once, and numbed the hearts and minds of most of the western world.
Conservatives took it upon themselves to use wealth, deceit, and corruption to make a concerted sociopathic effort to retard collective human kindness and compassion, evolution and progress, environmental sanity, and basically every endeavor rooted in sincere human decency.
They succeeded. We would be light years ahead of where we are now in terms of truly human progress if it were not for conservatives taking love and squeezing it until it bled in their greedy fascist fists.
Just thinking about it makes me sad, and actually slightly nauseous. I hope the film does not glorify this era in any way.
In 1980, humanity came to a fork in the road, and chose the path to a dead end.
We are just now, 30+ years later, beginning to find the way home again.
Occupy.
