Directed by Phyllida Lloyd. Starring Meryl Streep, Alexandra Roach, Jim Broadbent, Anthony Head, Richard E Grant, Olivia Colman, Nicholas Farrell 12A cert, general release, 104 min
Despite Meryl Streep's careful performance, this oddly bloodless drama isn't likely to satisfy many viewers, writes DONALD CLARKE
STOCKHOLM Syndrome is a worryingly persistent phenomenon. As Oliver Stone demonstrated with both Nixonand W, liberal film-makers, when addressing conservative figures, too often fall a little in love with their subjects.
Is that what’s going on here? Is that why Phyllida Lloyd’s biopic of Margaret Thatcher seems so wan and bloodless? Perhaps. The main problem, however, seems more systemic. Whether deliberately or not, Lloyd and screenwriter Abi Morgan have contrived to offer a bafflingly de-politicised take on the familiar story.
This breathlessly hurried film does, of course, include snapshots of all the great political events. Here’s the Falklands War. Here’s a Coles Notes take on Thatcher’s eventual downfall. But there is so little analysis, that any recovering hermit emerging from a few decades’ meditation would have difficulty discerning where Thatcher sat on the left-right spectrum.
Nodding towards Citizen Kane, The Iron Ladytakes place within the befuddled mind of an aging, deserted ruler. Now suffering from the advanced stages of dementia, Thatcher potters about her home musing on past glories. She exchanges quips with a ghostly incarnation of her late husband (Jim Broadbent on autopilot). She snaps at her underappreciated daughter Carol (an affecting Olivia Colman). Flashbacks propel us towards the key events in her rise and fall.
It hardly needs to be said that Meryl Streep nails the voice and the posture. Particularly effective as the older Thatcher, the trooper has worked hard at perfecting that affirmative head gesture and that classless timbre. But there’s something a little too soft, a little too Scandinavian about her demeanour.
One could overlook these bum notes if the film's superstructure was more soundly constructed. Though Lloyd's Mamma Mia!was fun, nothing in that mad jamboree suggested the film-maker was at home to the light touch. Sure enough, The Iron Ladyis directed with all the sensitivity Thatcher brought to labour relations.
Striking pickets bang angrily on the prime minister’s car. When she enters the House of Commons, a tilted camera shows doors being slammed in her face (quite literally) by misogynistic old fogeys. We know that Geoffrey Howe was offended by Thatcher’s dismissive behaviour in cabinet, but the film absurdly suggests that this was the sole reason for his eventual act of rebellion. This is a child’s view of political life.
There is much else to complain about. Colman is, for instance, forced to wear a preposterous false nose while actors who look nothing like their characters (the glamorous Anthony Head plays dead sheep Geoffrey Howe) are allowed to tramp around unhindered by prosthetics. But the most troubling aspect of The Iron Ladyis the way it makes Thatcher seem just a little bit silly. Readers of both the Guardianand the Daily Mailwill surely agree that this is one adjective she didn't deserve.
No, no, no!
