So Saturday night I went to the cinema and I did an experiment. Although it went in the company of my parents and some of their friends, I went to see a different movie. They have preferred to ”Welcome to the North” I opted for “The Iron Lady”, a beautiful film about the life of Margaret Thatcher. In conclusion, successful experiment. I enjoyed the whole movie in peace without comment or distractions. I enjoyed an hour and 45 ‘Meryl Streep, without anyone telling me ”But how good she is!” Or “But what she can do well!” And thanks! I know these things too.
IF YOU WANT TO GO TO SEE THE MOVIE DO NOT READ, HERE THERE ARE THE SPOILERS
Let’s go back to the film. Fictional, no doubt, perhaps too good with a woman who, despitethe grandeur of his “deeds”, has put a lot of people to starvation in his country. But how can you, at the end of the film, not to feel a bit ’involved? This director was very good,presenting a portrait of an old Thatcher, with early signs of Alzheimer’s and suffering fromconstant hallucinations in which she saw her husband (Denis Thatcher, who died 8 years earlier note). Almost all the widows in the world (including my grandmother) would findthemselves in the heartbreaking scene (I cried) when she does, reluctantly, to leave her husband, returning (more or less) to be the old Iron Lady. The film is a continuous back and forth between past and present. Everything in the house of M. reminds her of when she was still only “grocer’s daughter”, or when the IRA put a bomb in the hotel where she was staying with her husband. A stubborn woman, not prone to coalitions, or become adverseto terms with the parties and with the much hated unions. But still a woman, with her moments of weakness, with two children who will grow up far from her. ”When I stopped to think of others?” Is a question that the Thatcher stands at some point in the film, almost becoming a self, for having sacrificed her family on the climb to success, to the place of first minister. An exceptional Meryl Streep, thanks to a perfect makeup, creates a biography / novel very beautiful, which makes re-evaluate a character socontroversial. Of course, if the director had concentrated at a single historical period of the mandate of Thatcher, perhaps history would have seemed smoother and less jagged. The constant flashbacks are an old ”trick”, if you can name, used in many films. It would, perhaps, more interestingly, the only portrait during its first Thatcher years, orduring the riots and strikes, or a portrait, of the Conservative leader, in her last years (or months) of government. I realize that, in the way which has chosen, the director has tried to give a human face to who (usually) is regarded as a strong woman but at the same timeinsensitive and ruthless. Doing so, however, is a risk of falling into the pimp, you know, ”let’s make a film about Thatcher to make people like her now that she is old and sick.” All of herthoughts, relations with her husband and children, her fears, are plausible but likely, in fact,to make the audience believe that the purpose of the film is to make people love a woman who, in England, has brought Of course, many changes but has at the same time, made many poor families (not to mention Ireland).
In conclusion: the film is very nice, well done if you love the constant flashbacks and highlyfictionalized biography. The cast is what really makes the film worth seeing. Streep is leading the film at the Oscars almost hand in hand. It is not recommended for those wholoves biographies solely based on the facts and without ideas for private life (real or lifelike). But instead it is highly recommended to who (like me) loves many biographieswhere, in the end, no one is ever really (only) the black beast it seems.
If I were to give the film some stars, I would say 4. I can not give him 5 for the reasons Imentioned above. But to Mrs. Streep I would give 100,000 stars because she took mybreath away once again.
Meryl Streep: Golden Globe winner as Drama Best Acrtess
