IRON’S IN THE FIRE
Meryl Streep stirs Oscar talk and controversy as Britain’s Iron Lady
LOS ANGELES — Meryl Streep looks set for an unprecedented 17th Oscar nomination after earning glowing reviews for her performance as Britain’s Margaret Thatcher in the movie
The Iron Lady.
“Virtuoso”, “translucent”, and “compelling” were among the words used by U.S. movie critics this week to describe Streep’s turn as Britain’s polarizing, and only female, prime minister.
“Is there anything that Meryl Streep can’t do as an actress? One can only marvel at her virtuoso performance as Britain’s Margaret Thatcher,” said Rolling Stone reviewer Peter Travers. In The Iron Lady, Streep plays Thatcher as a rising politician and a confused, elderly woman looking back on her 1979-90 period in office.
Streep, 62, already has a record 16 Academy Award acting nominations. But she has won the Oscar only twice, for Kramer vs. Kramer in 1979 and Sophie’s Choice in 1982. Her turn as Thatcher has put her on the short-list for Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in January, ahead of the Oscar nominations announcement on Jan. 26.
Time magazine’s Richard Corliss called Streep’s performance as Thatcher, who is now 86, “a triumph”; Leah Rozen, writing for Thewrap.com, said Streep was “astonishingly accurate in mimicking the look, voice, gait and mannerisms of her real life character.”
However, The Iron Lady itself won fewer fans, scoring a 63-per-cent positive rating on movie aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.
New York Magazine’s David Edelstein described the film as “shallow but satisfying, largely because of Meryl Streep and her big fake English teeth and gift for using mimicry as a means of achieving empathy.”
In the New York Times, A.O. Scott praised the brilliance of Streep’s performance and said the movie was “likely to be the definitive screen treatment of Mrs. Thatcher, at least for a while.”
But he added; “You are left with the impression of an old woman who can’t quite remember who she used to be and of a movie that is not so sure either.”