The Iron Lady (2011)

Directed by: Phyllida Lloyd | 105 minutes | biography, drama | Actors: Meryl Streep, Anthony Head, Jim Broadbent, Harry Lloyd, Richard E. Grant, Ronald Reagan, Olivia Colman, Roger Allam, Teresa Mahoney, Nicholas Farrell, Susan Brown, Julian Wadham, Nick Dunning, Alexandra Roach, David Westhead, Michael Pennington, Hugh Ross

Meryl Streep must have kicked herself at the 2007 Oscars, when Helen Mirren won the Best Female Lead Award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in ‘The Queen’. Sure, she’d already racked up a total of 14 nominations for the prestigious award by then, but the last Oscar—of the two—that she actually won came back to 1983. Mirren’s win reaffirmed one of the ironclad Oscar laws: play a famous person in a biopic, a retarded (but never go full retard) or sign up for a war drama, and you can already make room on your mantelpiece. And yes, it never hurts if the film in question has a very British character, as was apparent from last year’s ‘The King’s Speech’, when the big winner was.

Streep has taken that lesson to heart and in ‘The Iron Lady’ plays the first and as yet only British female Prime Minister, (now Lady) Margaret Thatcher. Anyone who has seen ‘The Queen’, or ‘Ray’ (2004), or ‘Gandhi’ (1982) and is even remotely acquainted with British history over the past decades will be able to dream of the resulting film. We begin with a major breaking point in Thatcher’s life, then flashbacks show Thatcher’s life from the ugly duckling taunted by peers, giving the first thunderous speeches on early campaigns, all the way to the greatest hits like the striking unions, the Falklands War, the shaking hands with Ronald Reagan and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Anyone who thinks that after Todd Haynes’ slightly biographical, but mainly fragmented and associative ode to Bob Dylan, ‘I’m Not There’ (also from 2007), the standard biopic would definitely be a thing of the past, clearly ignores the temptations of the shiny gold from the Oscar statuette.

For a moment, the viewer seems to be deceived with this foreknowledge and suspicion. We start with Thatcher as an old woman, stumbling to the shop on the street corner, wearing granny’s headscarf. At the cash register, she is shaken by fast bankers and guys with iPods. What time are we in? Today, we conclude, when only a confused senior with health problems is left of the Iron Lady of British politics. It could have been your (grand)mother. This is a surprising start, but quickly interspersed with the well-known events mentioned above. However, her current struggle against old age continues to recur in the film.

You can say a lot about the person Thatcher, but she was polarizing anyway. Conservatives worldwide reveled in her aversion to compromise and the welfare state, its privatizations and wars against Argentines and union leaders; people on the left of the political spectrum were horrified at her breakdown of social services and her seemingly uncritical embrace of neoliberalism. Both camps can have their say, this has been meticulously taken care of, but it is increasingly noticeable that ‘MT’ is the heroine of the story: in every struggle and controversy it is always Thatcher who can have the last word, a tile wisdom or two may splurge on hard work and stand up for yourself and take the win. It is understandable that the main character is treated with some awe, but the gloves with which Thatcher is tackled in this film are made of such feather-soft velvet that ‘The Iron Lady’ comes across as a bit hagiographic. This is perhaps best shown in the episode surrounding her retirement from the premiership. Thatcher’s ever-decreasing sense of reason and realism had taken on fairly extreme forms during that period, but are only shown here as a crude one-liner during a cabinet meeting, a glum moment with the hubby and a tearful retreat accompanied by ecstatic opera music, rose petals and a standing ovation from a group of bystanders.

Meanwhile, we are presented with even more images of Thatcher as a teetering eighties, which each time seem to add less and less. The idea starts to creep up on you that these contemporary episodes are an attempt to give someone who left so little room for that a human, friendly face. Yes, Margaret Thatcher was very ambitious, uncompromising and tough, but she was also just human. It’s hard to really go along with this, as beautiful as it is that she’s the only woman to ever make it to 10 Downing Street. The latter is something that comes up often; the emphasis is understandable, both the screenwriter and director are female.

It still hurts: ‘The Iron Lady’ is technically a decent film, with good acting (Streep plays Thatcher very well in very different phases of life, with all mannerisms in the right place; she already received a prize from the New York Film Critics Circle for) and directing and editing that keep your attention on it without any problem. What dominates, however, is what shameless uniformity the film has become, uncritical and slightly coquettish because of the not-too-subtle American Dream message. Everything about the film seems to have been attributed to the Oscar ceremony, rather than trying to fillet or fathom an intriguing and controversial political leader. It may also yield a few gold statues, but for the viewer it is less undivided pleasure than for the possible winners.