Sympathy for Iron Lady after the damage is done
She is medusa with a head of auburn snakes shellacked into a helmet, but somewhere beneath this follicular cement crown looms the elusive heart of a human being — at least, that’s how Meryl Streep plays Margaret Thatcher, the still-vilified former British prime minister who, famously, waltzed with Ronald Reagan while the masses rioted in revolt.
Monsters can teach us nothing about ourselves, but seeing the shadows and light of good and evil washing across the face of someone we recognize as human can provide the most valuable life lesson of all: that we are all flawed, and we must look beyond our own body of opinion for the best answers.
Certainly, this is the most resonant message in The Iron Lady, Phyllida Lloyd ( Mamma Mia!) and Abi Morgan’s ( Shame) highly anticipated biopic of the one-time resident of 10 Downing Street.
An often tedious muddle of archival footage, recreated Parliamentary debates and flashback scenes detailing Thatcher’s rise to Britain’s top political office, The Iron Lady suffers from some rather basic problems that add up to bouts of undeniable boredom.
Scenes showing the young Thatcher, played here by a wide-eyed Alexandra Roach, have a habit of slowing things down and pulling us into the biopic booby trap of chronology.
We need to be surprised in a movie, even if we know the story already. There has to be an element of revelation, even if it’s just seeing a familiar face from a slightly different perspective.
Meryl Streep is, without a doubt, the most sought-after actor of her generation. And while some curmudgeonly critics have a habit of dumping on her for being a crafty chameleon, The Iron Lady proves Streep can don prosthetics, false teeth and an eerily good English accent without becoming artifact.
She takes all the stiffness of Thatcher’s persona and softens it up using little more than her eyes and her body. The first hint of empathy emerges in the opening scene, as we watch a frail old woman buy a pint of milk at the corner store and hobble, ever so slowly, home.
Streep is centre-frame, but we’ve already forgotten it’s her beneath the head scarf and sunken shoulders. This woman looks like a victim, a forgotten grandmother who subsists on tea and scones —not the ruler of a once-glorious empire.
This sentimental onslaught of sympathy in the opening scene plays out well, because it gives us enough standing room to get on board for the rest of the journey.
More important, it gives Streep a chance to set the tone and establish character.
On this score alone, Streep deserves all the hardware on offer this awards season, because she humanizes Thatcher in the details. She shows us an old lady who limps, can’t reach the clasp on her necklace, and continues to talk to a husband who died eight years earlier. The scene work between Streep and co-star Jim Broadbent, who plays the deceased spouse Denis, is a veritable master class in how to create screen intimacy without resorting to sex or expository stroking. It’s truly brilliant work.
Yet, where old Margaret is oddly charming, the middle-aged Thatcher (played by Streep, looking truly youthful) is somewhat terrifying. Fully absorbed by ambition, and ready to steamroller anyone who stands in her way, this power-seeking juggernaut starts to look scary when she drives away from her children in the wake of her successful bid for MP.
This woman has made a decision to abandon one part of her life to indulge in another, and that’s where the feminist side of this story starts to get sticky.
To their credit, the female filmmakers — Lloyd and Morgan — use this emotional cue to begin the ugliest stream of anecdotes in the whole narrative, from Thatcher’s rise to power to the crippling labour unrest and riots.
This is a Streep tour de force. She pulls off the impossible and makes us cry for a woman who is hated by so many. A problematic film about a problematic character, The Iron Lady isn’t doing any favours for history, but it certainly chalks up a clear victory for the power of inspired performance.