Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

David Elliott on The Big Screen: A Review of The Iron Lady

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome lead movie critic David Elliott as he crosses the Great Digital Divide and presents this Internet-only review of The Iron Lady:

Some iron was lost by filming Margaret Thatcher through a glass darkly. As the darkness of senile dementia takes over her mind, The Iron Lady becomes a pile of iron filings in a mushy bag of Depends.

The provincial grocer’s daughter became Britain’s first female Prime Minister and its strongest leader since Winston Churchill. She ruled the roost at 10 Downing Street for eleven years. Powerful men, often dressed in Savile Row suits, tended to quail in her presence. The Labour Party, the unions, and most of smart-chic London despised her tough, conservative policies, and also hated her. She was more than an English Reagan, as the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev quickly realized.

The heroine of this odd “tribute” was armed with convictions, then a make-over that included her famous crown of bouffant hair and a poshed accent. “Maggie” rose through the old boys network and kept driving the boys crazy. On film none of the servile or offended males are very challenging. As Michael Heseltine, who finally helped bring Thatcher down in 1991, Richard E. Grant is only a vain cipher on-the-make.

Having previously made Mamma Mia! and Macbeth, Phyllida Lloyd should have been just the director to make a movie about this bold Mamma Macbeth of British politics (husband Denis Thatcher, played with perky charm by Jim Broadbent, is no Macbeth, more like a court jester). But Lloyd and writer Abi Morgan opted for a soft, “humanizing” strategy, as if a little scared of Thatcher’s flint and fire. Between flashbacks and grainy news clips, they keep returning to Margaret in retirement, a shade bitter, still imperious, often foggy in the head but with lucid passages.

Meryl Streep is poignant, and most of her best touches are in the twilight scenes. The rest is very good impersonation, though at times she looks like Faye Dunaway in the Pepsi-Cola phase of Mommie Dearest. There is an excellent scene of Margaret instructing her doctor about thoughts and feelings. The movie should have listened harder. It doesn’t have enough thoughts.

Streep looks great in Maggie’s Tory-blue suits and she has the ego-crushing diction down superbly, though any viewer who wants history will soon be lost. We get a sense that the Falklands War with Argentina not only tested Maggie’s iron but forged it into steel. It still seems a minor war, one famously summarized by writer Jorge Luis Borges as “two bald men fighting over a comb.”

As Thatcher twinkles fondly over memories of The King and I, or recalls girlhood days at the grocery (Alexandra Roach is quite good as young Margaret Roberts), the film shrinks. It is too small and cozily personal to capture the leader who made French President Jacques Chirac squeal in fury, “What does she want – my balls on a tray?” One of her ministers, John Biffen, put the basic fact this way: “She was a tigress surrounded by hamsters.”

Verdict: go for Streep, on her way to a 17th Oscar nomination. Revel in the best memories, if you are a Thatcherite. Not even enemies should gloat over her decline. This great lady was not given to pity, which permeates The Iron Lady. At 86, Mrs.Thatcher is still with us, and I doubt that she would be a fan.

Reader rating: Two stars

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all

Previous article

Haunted Trail of Balboa Park, ZZ Top, Gem Diego Show

Events October 31-November 2, 2024

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome lead movie critic David Elliott as he crosses the Great Digital Divide and presents this Internet-only review of The Iron Lady:

Some iron was lost by filming Margaret Thatcher through a glass darkly. As the darkness of senile dementia takes over her mind, The Iron Lady becomes a pile of iron filings in a mushy bag of Depends.

The provincial grocer’s daughter became Britain’s first female Prime Minister and its strongest leader since Winston Churchill. She ruled the roost at 10 Downing Street for eleven years. Powerful men, often dressed in Savile Row suits, tended to quail in her presence. The Labour Party, the unions, and most of smart-chic London despised her tough, conservative policies, and also hated her. She was more than an English Reagan, as the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev quickly realized.

The heroine of this odd “tribute” was armed with convictions, then a make-over that included her famous crown of bouffant hair and a poshed accent. “Maggie” rose through the old boys network and kept driving the boys crazy. On film none of the servile or offended males are very challenging. As Michael Heseltine, who finally helped bring Thatcher down in 1991, Richard E. Grant is only a vain cipher on-the-make.

Having previously made Mamma Mia! and Macbeth, Phyllida Lloyd should have been just the director to make a movie about this bold Mamma Macbeth of British politics (husband Denis Thatcher, played with perky charm by Jim Broadbent, is no Macbeth, more like a court jester). But Lloyd and writer Abi Morgan opted for a soft, “humanizing” strategy, as if a little scared of Thatcher’s flint and fire. Between flashbacks and grainy news clips, they keep returning to Margaret in retirement, a shade bitter, still imperious, often foggy in the head but with lucid passages.

Meryl Streep is poignant, and most of her best touches are in the twilight scenes. The rest is very good impersonation, though at times she looks like Faye Dunaway in the Pepsi-Cola phase of Mommie Dearest. There is an excellent scene of Margaret instructing her doctor about thoughts and feelings. The movie should have listened harder. It doesn’t have enough thoughts.

Streep looks great in Maggie’s Tory-blue suits and she has the ego-crushing diction down superbly, though any viewer who wants history will soon be lost. We get a sense that the Falklands War with Argentina not only tested Maggie’s iron but forged it into steel. It still seems a minor war, one famously summarized by writer Jorge Luis Borges as “two bald men fighting over a comb.”

As Thatcher twinkles fondly over memories of The King and I, or recalls girlhood days at the grocery (Alexandra Roach is quite good as young Margaret Roberts), the film shrinks. It is too small and cozily personal to capture the leader who made French President Jacques Chirac squeal in fury, “What does she want – my balls on a tray?” One of her ministers, John Biffen, put the basic fact this way: “She was a tigress surrounded by hamsters.”

Verdict: go for Streep, on her way to a 17th Oscar nomination. Revel in the best memories, if you are a Thatcherite. Not even enemies should gloat over her decline. This great lady was not given to pity, which permeates The Iron Lady. At 86, Mrs.Thatcher is still with us, and I doubt that she would be a fan.

Reader rating: Two stars

Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Reviews!

Next Article

Reviews!

Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader