Movie Review - The Iron Lady

The Iron Lady (2011)

Starring Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent

Directed by Phyllida Law

Much like last year's The King's Speech, I went into The Iron Lady thinking I was going to be bored learning about a piece of British history, but hoping that my qualms would be squashed.  Unlike The King's Speech which proved to be thoroughly entertaining and heart-warming, The Iron Lady is simply yawn-inducing and cold.  Please don't get me wrong here -- Meryl Streep is amazing as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.  There's part of me that wanted to be able to come on this blog and type that Streep finally blew it and gave a crappy performance, but I'm really beginning to think this lady can do no wrong.  She is riveting.  It's the story crafted around her and the rather silly direction that drags this one down.  There was part of me that was hoping I'd at least feel a little loyalty towards the "character" of Margaret Thatcher onscreen seeing as how her conservative nature is something I lean towards politically, but when I'd already checked my watch ten times in the first forty minutes to see how much longer this flick was going to go on (and that's no exaggeration), I knew this simply wasn't working for me.

When the film opens, we see an aged Margaret Thatcher, retired from her political life, sitting at her kitchen table with her husband Denis (Jim Broadbent).  As she discusses an increase in the price of milk, it is revealed that Margaret is simply talking to herself.  Denis has died, but a senile Margaret can't seem to let go of her husband's presence.  As the troubled Margaret tries to deal with her husband's death, she remembers back upon her life from her humble beginnings as the daughter of a grocer to her rise to power in the Conservative party of Great Britain.  Unfortunately, those flashbacks lack any bite, leaving Thatcher much more two-dimensional than three.  Important moments in Thatcher's political career are seemingly glossed over rather than examined and debated.

Still, what saves The Iron Lady from being an all-out failure is Meryl Streep.  She loses herself in Thatcher and we forget that we're watching Ms. Streep.  Of course, kudos to the make-up department for making Ms. Streep utterly unrecognizable as an old woman, but beyond that, the woman has the ability to lose herself in these characters.  Even before that opening shot I describe above, we get an image of an elderly Margaret Thatcher walking along the streets of England.  From this moment as Streep slowly makes her way through the town, I was won over.  There's something about Streep's ability to pick up on the littlest nuances of people (the way elderly feet shuffle along the ground, for example) that amazes me.

Of course, Streep's performance doesn't save the movie from being a train wreck.  Well, a "train wreck" is probably the wrong terminology to use because you'd probably be morbidly fascinated with watching a train wreck whereas The Iron Lady does nothing but make you twiddle your thumbs out of ennui.

The RyMickey Rating:  D