Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Entertainment grade: C+
History grade: C
Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990.
Structure
The Iron Lady tells its story as a series of flashbacks experienced by the ageing Thatcher (Meryl Streep), suffering from dementia and haunted by the imagined ghost of her late husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent). Streep is terrific, carrying off Thatcher in her prime and Thatcher in her dotage with equal aplomb. Regrettably, however, so much of the film's screentime has been devoted to the dotage – and so many of the flashbacks are, unlike Thatcher herself, preoccupied with her role as a wife and mother – that little time is left for the interesting stuff. A few of those who are relegated to blink-and-you'll-miss-'em status, or don't appear at all: Cecil Parkinson, Nigel Lawson, Norman Tebbit, Willie Whitelaw, Keith Joseph, Charles Powell, Bernard Ingham, Neil Kinnock, Arthur Scargill and Ronald Reagan.
Class
Back to 1950, when young Margaret (née Roberts) is being interviewed as a prospective Conservative candidate for Dartford. In the film, this takes place at an intimidating formal dinner. One of the guests is businessman Denis Thatcher. Grocer's daughter Margaret is daunted by the cutlery. Denis whispers: "Start on the outside and work your way in." This did not happen to Margaret Roberts. Instead, it has been lifted from the 1990 film Pretty Woman, starring Julia Roberts (no relation) as a Los Angeles prostitute. During the real Dartford selection meeting, Margaret Roberts sat on a podium next to her father and discussed the welfare state. Instead of attacking it, she claimed some credit for the Conservatives for setting up the Beveridge Commission – the inquiry that led to its foundation. It is true, though, that Denis was in the audience.
Parliament
In 1970, Thatcher becomes education secretary. She irritates the prime minister, Edward Heath, in cabinet meetings by expressing views that go beyond her remit. This is true, though in real life her lines were sharper than the movie suggests. For instance, when appointing a new chairman of the BBC, Heath dismissed one candidate by saying: "He's got much too high an opinion of himself." The real Thatcher interrupted from the end of the table: "Well, most men do, prime minister." Soon, Thatcher is elected leader of the Conservative party. The film suggests she did this by getting a fabulous blowdry. Good grief.
War
Thatcher is elected prime minister and soon makes herself unpopular, both within her own party and in the country at large. Fortunately for her political career, Argentina invades the Falklands. The film attempts to explain the sinking of the Belgrano, showing that Thatcher knew the Argentine cruiser was sailing away from the exclusion zone when she gave the order to sink it. Everything happens in a situation room, complete with beepy radar screens, people running around looking important, and a table covered in model ships. According to Rear Admiral JF Woodward, commander of the Falklands task force, there was no such fuss when he sent a colleague to secure Thatcher's agreement to the sinking. "This was achieved in remarkably short order," he remembered, "reputedly in the entrance hall at Chequers." The film skips the government's cover-up. Famously, a year later, Thatcher denied on television that the Belgrano was sailing away from the task force when it was attacked.
Ousting
By the end of the 1980s, Thatcher's economic miracle crumbles into recession. There are riots over the poll tax. Her attitude to Europe isolates her from her own party. The film gives a tantalising but all-too-brief glimpse of the political drama that brought her down: the turning of her key ally, Sir Geoffrey Howe (Anthony Head) and the ambition of Michael Heseltine (Richard E Grant). It almost tries to excuse Thatcher's legendary rudeness to Howe by implying she was beginning to lose it at the time. In fact, being tough and inflexible was always her style. Even back in the 1970s, close associate Airey Neave walked out of a meeting with her, claiming he had never been spoken to so rudely in his life. This movie would be more satisfying for Thatcher's admirers and critics alike if they had cut the fluff and let the Iron Lady be what she was: hard as nails.
Verdict
Meryl Streep's knockout performance lifts The Iron Lady out of complete mediocrity, but the film around her is wishy-washy and unfocused. Whether you love or loathe Margaret Thatcher, those are not things you can say about her.
