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LADY, THE (director: Phyllida
Lloyd; screenwriter: Abi Morgan; cinematographer: Elliot
Davis; editor: Justine Wright; music: Thomas Newman;
cast: Roger Allam (Gordon Reece), Jim Broadbent (Denis
Thatcher), Meryl
Streep (Margaret
Thatcher), Harry Lloyd (Young Denis Thatcher),
Alexandra Roach (Young Margaret Thatcher), Olivia Colman
(Carol), Iain Glen
(Alfred
Roberts), Richard E. Grant (Michael Heseltine),
Geoffrey Howe (Anthony Head), John Sessions
(Edward
Heath),
June (Susan Brown), Nicholas Farrell (Conservative adviser);
Runtime: 105; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producer: Damian
Jones; Weinstein Company; 2011) "As one would expect, Meryl Streep delivers a brilliant technically perfect performance as Lady Margaret Thatcher." Reviewed
by Dennis Schwartz As one
would expect, Meryl
Streep delivers a brilliant technically perfect performance
as Lady Margaret
Thatcher; but that's not enough to compensate for the
biopic so carelessly glossing over her political
career, being so fuzzy about the politics, the bland
direction by Phyllida Lloyd ("Mamma Mia!") and the soft-edged
screenplay by Abi Morgan. If you wanted a
laundry list of The Iron Lady's accomplishments and a
somewhat humanizing presentation of such a
controversial and divisive monster figure, you got it.
But if you wanted a film with more gravitas and more
hard-hitting political insights, that's not the case. It
begins with an elderly, doddering, world-weary and
long retired ex-Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, living
alone while cared for by servants in her comfortable
but far from luxurious Chester Square home in
London, where she deals with the death of her loyal husband Denis (Jim
Broadbent) by talking to him as a ghost long after his
death, fretting about the changing world, and that one
of her twins is living faraway in South Africa.
Through flashbacks we follow how this obstinate
grocer's daughter went to Oxford and in 1959 took a
seat in the House of Parliament as a Conservative and
through her ability to be unflappable and stick to her
hardline conservative principles became the only female Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom. Her rigid economic policies (deregulation, mass
privatization, and decreased public-service spending)
aimed against
the working-class and putting the blame on the unions
for the country's ills, made her initially an
unpopular figure with the masses. While in office as
the P.M., she harshly dealt with the miners’ strike of 1983,
the IRA bombings and, at last found her footing with the people
in her successful war effort in 1982 against the
Argentina Junta who invaded the Falkland Islands. The war
resulted in a quick victory and brought about a
renewed patriotism in Great Britain that made her a
popular figure. She got the nickname of the Iron Lady
for her tough stance against the Soviet Union, but her
popularity diminished when she introduced the
unpopular poll tax (in Scotland in 1989 and in the
rest of the country a year later) and this led to her
resignation. Thatcher remained in office for 11 years
(1979-1990). Alexandra Roach does a
terrific job as the wide-eyed young Maggie Roberts; while Harry Lloyd is appealing as
he plays the supportive young businessman Denis Thatcher,
who marries Maggie Roberts and encourages her to run
for office. Carol
Thatcher, Margaret's testy and caring twin daughter,
is finely played by Olivia Colman. Though the overall acting is quite good, the film fails to be inspiring, informative (it leaves out or brushes too quickly over too many events that made the P. M. so disliked) or anything but a safe middle-brow work. But, it's probably worth seeing, just to see the American actress Streep hit another one out of the park--this time for the Brits. REVIEWED ON 12/21/2011 GRADE: B- Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ |