The Iron Lady

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Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Cast: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Alexandra Roach and Olivia Coman
Release Date: 2012-03-02
Quick Take: The artist outshines the art

The Iron Lady releases late in India but it comes at an opportune moment. Meryl Streep’s won the Oscar for her performance in the film. And the movie’s make-up artists Mark Coulier and J Roy Helland have aced the Academy tests as well. Sadly, those are the only parts of the movie that make it worth a watch. Rest of the way, director Phyllida Lloyd does a hotchpotch with her narrative and filmmaking technique.

If you know anything about Margaret Thatcher, you’d know hers is one of the finest stories of woman triumph in the male society. She was called the Iron Lady because she sort of bitch-slapped the British male-dominated democracy. The movie deals with her humble beginnings, her rise to prominence and her downfall as well. The story is all there. It’s just that it’s presented in a disjointed manner.

Lloyd chooses to tell Thatcher’s story in the form of dream-like memoirs. The old and frail Thatcher struggles with paranoia and depression as she constantly lapses into flashbacks of the romantic, ecstatic and poignant times in her life. The idea was nice but the execution is far from commendable.

There are scenes that stick out like sore thumbs. Thatcher it seems floats in the corridors of the British Parliament while walking with her ministers. And Lloyd unnecessarily uses too many jump cuts in scenes of dramatic dialogue.

But beyond the director’s mediocrity lies a performance that only Meryl Streep could manage.

She’s Margaret Thatcher from the tip of her bouffant right down to the tips of her black shoes. The English accent, the vivid eccentricity, the voice modulation and the English demeanour are text book perfect. She makes the film.

Lloyd tries to make The Iron Lady in the same vein as The King’s Speech and The Queen, but fails to pull it off. Moments that could have inspired cinematic brilliance are reduced to instances in Thatcher’s chronicle. You need to watch this film for a lesson in film acting. As for being Thatcher’s biopic, Wikipedia does a better job.