WOOF, what a dog of an assignment. I try to go into movies with an open mind, but that was impossible here. The Iron Lady. I feel stupid just saying the title. Try it. Go to your local theater and tell the cashier, “I’m here to see The Iron Lady.” You’ll feel like an asshole, I promise.
Basically, I expected a cut-rate The King’s Speech, which was already the same boring biopic we’ve all seen umpteen times before. A COURAGEOUS OUTSIDER AND BLAH BLAH BLAH UNLIKELY PARTNERSHIP WAR SPEECH THE END.
Imagine my surprise when I found that it wasn’t a biopic about Margaret Thatcher: Prime Minister at all, but rather a biopic about Margaret Thatcher: Senile Old Lady, grieving over her husband (Jim Broadbent) who died eight years ago. You know that shitty flashback structure they use in every biopic where the decrepit old protagonist stares wistfully at a picture of themself on a horse before it turns into a period piece? Well imagine if that pointless flashback justification wasn’t just five minutes at the beginning and end of the movie, but A RECURRING THEME THAT TAKES UP HALF THE RUNNING TIME. Hate boring, conventional political biopics? Well hey, here’s that, intercut with 40 minutes of an old lady hallucinating conversations about tea with her dead husband! MY GOD, IT’S ALL WORTH IT TO HEAR MERYL STREEP DO AN ACCENT!
This film actually made me wish for a more accurate portrayal of the political events of Margaret Thatcher’s term. Consider that as you stare into the abyss. IRA bombings, economic strife, the Falklands War—there’s actually some complexity there into which one might delve (to borrow Thatcher’s favorite rhetorical strategy), but The Iron Lady treats them all as referendums on “poise.” How will the old bird handle this latest political crisis? SPOILER ALERT: WITH A STIFF UPPER LIP. AN UPPER LIP SO FUCKING STIFF YOU’D THINK IT WAS MADE OF IRON!
The Falklands is the one world event that isn’t glossed over completely in favor of portentous hairspray changes and diction lessons, and Iron Lady‘s treatment of that is absolutely infuriating. After the Argentineans invade the disputed territory 250 miles off their coast, Thatcher quickly stands up for what she thinks is right (BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT AN IRON LADY DOES, YOU SEE) and dispatches warships. In the ensuing council with US Secretary of State Alexander Haig (Matthew Marsh), he asks her why she wants to send troops thousands of miles to protect some shitty islands where hardly anyone lives (valid question, really). She cuts him off with, “Like Hawaii, I’d imagine.”
First of all, are you fucking high? But her idiotic Pearl Harbor analogy gets zero scrutiny from the filmmakers (and in fact was treated with soaring music, I thought my brain was melting), only this exchange:
HAIG: “With all due respect, madame, when one has been to war—”
THATCHER/STREEP: “With all duuuue respect, sir, I HAVE done battle. Ev-ray SINGLE day of my life.”
Get it? She knows war because she’s a chick! So I guess we can blame the Falklands War on feminism now.
Fuck this movie.
Did the movie even cover that she bashed the British Working class, including the poll tax and its subsequent riots?!?!?!
It sounds like the biopic has become another name for revisionist history.
(Also fuck Thatcher everyday)
Agreed. Thatcher and Reagan (btw) – two tyrannical partners-in-warcrimes.
Another reason why it would have been for Britain to elect a Labour government in 1983 or 1987…we’d have been spared THIS movie(and Tony Blair as well).
Sorry, that should have been “another reason why it would have been BETTER for Britain to have elected a Labour government in 1983 or 1987…”
This is the best review I’ve ever read.
I sadly had to review this for a film blog and I picked out all the same things as you. So cliche, so boring.
Some grey hairs actually clapped after that Hawaii line. I could not wait to get out of that theater.
Are you people a bunch of idiots. Oh wait, you are. The Falkland Islands are part of Britain just like Hawaii is to the United States. We defended Pearl Harbor for our citizens living there and military when it wasn’t even a US state and just a territory. So, her comment was totally right. Would we leave one of our territories? No. Was the film maker about Britain? YES. Was it about Margaret Thatcher in a sort of biopic sense? Yes. It was written as how Margaret would see her own life. Not how someone else would see it. She would view her own life as she reflected upon her OWN LIFE. People don’t often reflect on their own lives extremely negatively when the look back at the things they did that they believed was right. She was a staunch conservative. She believed that you should pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Unfortunately, in the eighties, there weren’t any bootstraps. There were horrible economic times but would she see it that way? Nope, she was one of the haves. I thought it was a good film. It was entertaining. Fictional but entertaining. If you go into knowing that, you won’t get your knickers in a twist. People it is just a fucking movie for fucks sakes. Get over it.