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Title: The Iron Lady (2011)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Meryl Streep | ... | Margaret Thatcher | |
| Jim Broadbent | ... | Denis Thatcher | |
| Susan Brown | ... | June - Housekeeper | |
| Alice da Cunha | ... | Cleaner | |
| Phoebe Waller-Bridge | ... | Susie - Margaret's Secretary | |
| Iain Glen | ... | Alfred Roberts | |
| Alexandra Roach | ... | Young Margaret Thatcher | |
 |
Victoria Bewick | ... | Muriel Roberts |
|
|
Emma Dewhurst | ... | Beatrice Roberts |
| Olivia Colman | ... | Carol Thatcher | |
| Harry Lloyd | ... | Young Denis Thatcher | |
| Sylvestra Le Touzel | ... | Hostess 1949 | |
| Michael Culkin | ... | Host 1949 | |
|
|
Stephanie Jacob | ... | Female Guest 1949 |
| Robert Portal | ... | Grey Suited Guest - 1949 | |
Elderly and a virtual prisoner in her own home due to her concerned staff and daughter Carol, Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first woman prime minister, looks back on her life as she clears out her late husband Denis's clothes for the Oxfam shop. Denis is seen as being her rock as she first enters parliament and then runs for the leadership of the Conservative Party, culminating in her eventual premiership. Now his ghost joins her to comment on her successes and failures, sometimes to her annoyance, generally to her comfort until ultimately, as the clothes are sent to the charity shop, Denis departs from Margaret's life forever. Written by don @ minifie-1
At last, the long-awaited film of the life of Margaret Thatcher arrived in theatres and, more importantly, the long-awaited performance of guaranteed-another-Oscar-nomination Meryl Streep.
With a bit of a thud.
Entering the theatre, I hoped this film would be an entertaining history lesson on the reign of the much loved/hated Thatcher, as I remember her being in power, but as I was a kid, I remember little about any details of her days ruling the UK. However, by the time the credits rolled, I felt I didn't learn very much. At all.
Early reviews critiqued this film for focusing too much on Thatcher in her later years, stricken with dementia. This is couldn't be any more true. In a very clichéd, seen-it-all-before fashion, Thatcher's life is rolled out in fragmented segments as an older Thatcher reminisces with the ghost of her late husband, played by Jim Broadbent.
Yes, The Iron Lady is primarily portrayed as a woman who speaks with a hallucination of her husband, thus making her flashbacks seem less like fact and more like fanciful bit memories of a crazy person. Very short, sporadic flashbacks that don't offer up much detail, nuance or information and insight into the woman herself. It was more like looking through a flashback of headlines that lead you to skim through the article rather than reading it.
And such a delivery is a real disservice not just to an audience craving some real glimpse into the life of the first female leader of the Western world, but to both Thatcher and Meryl Streep themselves, whose riveting performance is lost in a film with no real direction, focus or substance.
There is no doubt that the Golden-Globe-nominated Streep is a lock for her seventeenth Oscar nomination, as her transformation into the titular woman of iron is extraordinary. Sadly, I cannot say the same about the film.