Much like Margaret Thatcher herself, The Iron Lady is proving to be very divisive. Meryl Streep plays the former British Prime Minister in this biopic and her performance is nothing short of exemplary; she has already nabbed a Golden Globe for Best Actress and she is now nominated for an Oscar as well.

Streep, who observed a meeting of Parliament in order to prepare for her role, is flawless in the execution of her role as Thatcher.  She was able to mimic her mannerisms, accent and tone perfectly. Thanks to this performance, as well as the work of the incredibly talented and Oscar nominated makeup artists Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland, this reproduction of Margaret Thatcher’s political reign is visually flawless too.

However, in terms of writing and directing, the film’s problems lie not so much in its historical accuracy but rather in its taste. The movie depicts 86-year-old Margaret Thatcher having flashbacks to her early adulthood and her time in office; Thatcher is thus portrayed as a shell of the commanding woman she once was, with a great deal of focus brought onto her dementia and general senility. A majority of the flashbacks are spawned from Thatcher’s conversations with her long dead husband, played by Jim Broadbent. This incredibly intimate portrait treads closely on the line between a good-old fashioned biopic and a voyeuristic, mildly macabre invasion of privacy.

There is more focus on Thatcher’s senility than her political career, and the film skims over a majority of historical events. The film tries to encompass Thatcher’s whole career starting with her first role in Parliament as an MP for Finchley and finally the disappointing conclusion of her resignation brought on by pressure from within her party, the Conservatives. However, the lazy newsreel-esque shots of the miners’ strike, the Poll Tax riots and the Brighton bombing seem like a cop-out on the part of the director, Phyllida Lloyd.

All in all, this film is worth seeing, especially since it is quite possible that Academy-darling Streep will take home the statue. But don’t expect much past Streep’s performance. There have been extremely mixed reviews, but a majority of complaints are in relation to the scenes depicting her dementia. If the film had followed a more traditional biopic form it probably would have been more successful; nevertheless, The Iron Lady still does a decent job of at least starting a conversation on Thatcher’s long and controversial career.

Photo by Miramax

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