Revisiting the Thatcher days

The Iron Lady (2011)
Certified: PG
Duration: 105 minutes
Directed by: Phyllida Lloyd
Starring: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Alexandra Roach, Harry Lloyd, Olivia Colman, Anthony Head, Nicholas Farrell, Richard E. Grant
KRS release

The Iron Lady starts off in the present day with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep) portrayed as a reclusive loner.

She spends most of her time thinking of and “talking to” her late husband Denis (Jim Broadbent). This worries her daughter Carol (Olivia Colman) and decides to get rid of Denis’s things.

It is here that Ms Thatcher revisits her past – one which is turbulent and which would forever mark her as one of Britain’s most prominent and controversial political figures.

The film takes us back to when young Margaret (Alexandra Roach) worked in her father’s grocery store where she first met Denis (Harry Lloyd).

The film follows her involvement in politics and how, after an initial failure, she manages to get elected into Parliament.

Her staunch confrontations with the Labour Party, which was then in government, lead to her becoming party leader and consequently Prime Minister.

The film takes us through her tumultuous tenure that involved the trouble with the unions, the Brixton riots, the in-party fighting and the Falklands Islands war.

The Iron Lady is characterised by a great performance by Meryl Streep.

The movie works best when seen as a portrait of a very strong-willed woman who went against the tide. It is not a conventional biopic where we are given an adulating depiction of a personality.

The way the Iron Lady is structured reveals the intention to truly portray Thatcher faithfully and not simply retelling events in a step-by-step manner that can easily be achieved by searching for the ex-PM on Wikipedia.

Her depiction is not always flattering, but then again, her relationship with the public, the voters and the people she worked with rarely was. The film shows us what made Thatcher tick – the elements for which she became known as the Iron Lady.

It is obvious from the start that she inherited some traits from her father, a grocer who was independent and very thrifty.

Her husband is seen as a supporting figure throughout her career.

In its favour, the film is never judgemental. Whatever one’s political beliefs, whether one agrees with the way she handled the unions, the riots, the Falklands War and so on, the film simply focuses on the woman.

Watching the birth of thefigure whose single-minded approach characterised more than a decade of Britain and seeing it presented so fluidly by a veteran actress on top of her game is The Iron Lady’s major accomplishment.