Review: Film

The Iron Lady by Abi Morgan, dir Phyllida Lloyd, Meryl Streep, Olivia Colman, Jim Broadbent

Imbalanced. A staggering, meticulous performance by Meryl Streep as the iron lady, ex-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. If the film had remained as an account of grief and dementia, which is its humanity, it perhaps would have earned more plaudits. As it is those at Westminster seem to have distanced themselves from it, and indeed part of an awkwardness is the juxtaposition of real footage, such as the 1980s’ miners’ strike and the sinking of The Belgrano, with its fictionalised, familial account. The difficulty is that we don’t know how to ‘read’ these as they are remembered by the ‘present’ Margaret. They come to us in an unexpurgated form, so that the mis-match of film format, after a while, becomes irritating. This is a shame for its human story is touching. Ably supporting Streep are Olivia Colman as Carol Thatcher and Jim Broadbent as Dennis; and Abi Morgan – who seems to have written everything at the moment – once again demonstrates, as she does in Lovesong, that she writes with real heart. The Iron Lady, complete with the off-stage, spectral presence of Mark Thatcher - always the favoured off-spring - as Carol does her best to keep ‘mummy’ going; and the inter-cut, imagined scenes involving Dennis, elevate the film from a kind of ordinariness……