

New film: “The Iron Lady”

Cheekbones and chidings

A new film about Margaret Thatcher will divide audiences, as its heroine did

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Readers' comments



Roz Bennetts

I don't mind admitting I feel a bit saddened by this film - as wonderful as Meryl Streep will no doubt be and as much as Margaret Thatcher was the equivalent of Marmite to the British public, I prefer to remember her at her finest.

I've yet to see it but I understand from Cameron's comments that the film focuses on her dementia rather than what she achieved as Prime Minister. Celebrating (if it can be called that) her illnesses and dementia (if it's true) seem just a little bit smutty to me, after all they were never meant for public consumption and remain her private life.


Having just watched the film, I'm unclear as to whether it is intended as broadly in the bio-pic genre (and therefore attempting to provide insight into an undoubtedly remarkable figure), a touching tale of hubris (world leader becomes batty old woman), or unabashed hagiography ("Maggie the Great - saved the UK, might have been a milk snatcher but very soft and nice when at home").

It fails on all three fronts, despite an extraordinary performance from Ms. Streep.

If bio-pic, it fails to explore (particularly for the benefit of those not born / politically aware at the time) the extreme levels of social divisiveness that she inspired across the UK. Footage of striker versus police rumbles (only to be expected in any major industrial action scenario) fail to capture the much broader passions stirred across all sectors of UK society during the '80s. As MT herself would have relished, there was no middle ground - for or against, with a passion. At pubs, clubs, suburban dinner parties, everywhere it was a question of "whose side are you on"- with fisticuffs the frequent outcome as the beer or wine flowed. No namby-pamby consensus seeking allowed!

If hubristic study of great leader in decline, I'm with Cameron (an unusual state of affairs!): leave it until she's gone to the great bear pit in the sky.

If hagiography (which I see as probably closest to the mark), may god (or whoever) preserve us from future students of history using this movie as a source of quasi-contemporary assessment of MT's contribution to UK society. It fails to bring home the defining motif of her era - the death of civic compassion in the UK.


What a shame that so much of the film emphasises Thatcher's mental decline, while leaving out or skirting over many of her great achievements. It seems, as many say, that only left-wing feminists are to be lauded for their public lives, while the truly great females of a different political persuasion are 'played down'.


There is a point, not known by general audience in the West. Margaret Thatcher was technically criticized in the Soviet newspapers and TV. But, it was a kind of inept verbal attacks, which actually gave her positive publicity in the USSR. I think that Mikhail Gorbachev, who was on friendly terms with her even before his appointment as Secretary General of CPSU, secretly supported her cause in seemingly criticizing remarks of Soviet establishment.

Do you know that Thatcher didn't attend the funeral of Leonid Brezhnev? But she attended the funeral of Yuri Andropov, who sponsored Gorbachev's ascent to power. Therefore, her image during Gorbachev's rule was rather bright than dull.


Mad Hatter

I will not bother to see it. I do find Meryl Creep a tedious method actress who never brings any soul to a performance, mere techincal perfection.

As to portraying Thatcher as slightly demented in her later years, as much as it is a clever way of delivering a message, it denigrates her success in revitalising the UK.

I sometimes wish directors wouldn't try to be so clever.

A Curmudgeon

I haven't seen this film yet, but intend to do so. I wonder if it captures the fact that she failed by her own measure: she wanted to create a Britain that was thriftier, harder working and had self-responsibility as its keystone. Can we really say that's what happened? Or did people become more wasteful, more self-centred, and less mindful of the consequences of their actions? Given what we've learned in recent years, it's more the latter than the former. The facts of life are neither conservative nor socialist, as it turns out, but rather something simpler: people are going to be who they want to be, and we need to take off the blinkers of ideology to adapt successfully to this.


In reference to Germany's reunification this woman said :

"We have beaten them twice...and they're back"

Just note that "We".

A miserable comment from a miserable person.

Mike RAC

So many reviewers have failed to understand that this film is a study of aging and dementia, through the life of one, rather well-known, person.

This is no Hollywood biopic: no attempt to reinvent a past, or analyse the politics of the Eighties. (If you remember, the Kings Speech wasn't an examination of how King George VI ruled).

You need to go elsewhere if you want to see how Britain would have been better off if we still had 200,000 men and boys still down the mines; how Thatcher succeeded because of the failures of Michael Foot; or how the Falklands was a pointless loss of lives, both during, and after, the conflict.

The Iron Lady is a simple examination of aging which affected our grandparents and parents; and which will affect us, in our turn.

Now, what was I going to do next?

Grettir in reply to guest-iienmnn

"it was a kind of inept verbal attacks, which actually gave her positive publicity in the USSR"

That's not entirely accurate. When she was crushing miners movement, her publicity in the USSR was extremely negative. I remember numerous interviews with English mining union leaders broadcasted in the prime time in "Vremya" and endless "chidings" of British capitalism she was so supportive of. By the way, one of that interviews as I recall well was about milk distributed among poor miners on strike.

It is hard to image a different approach to the issue in the USSR at the time. Back then miners were kind of elite proletariat across USSR, especially in places like Kemerovo region and Donbass. Their salaries were on par with salaries of members of Academy of Science although their life expectancy was frightfully low.


Yesterday BBC reported that there is a disagreement boils in the British society whether or not it is OK to make movies about Mrs. Thatcher who is still with us. It is not entirely clear why it may not be OK but once again UK is deeply divided because of that.

I think that was Borges, the Argentine, who commented on Falkland War as "two balds are arguing about the comb". Somehow that division reported by BBC reminds me of that comment. It does not really matter - she has her very prominent place in history of Europe (and, perhaps, South America as well) no matter who and how argues about anything.


Amen. "Iron Lady" is terribly misleading conservative propaganda delivered at a time when American Republicans are spewing some of the same misguided policy pronouncements. God help us. - Chuck Montgomery

DJ Glasnost

Disappointing. Even if granting for nuanced style, it still comes across as a collage (a poor one) of Thatcher's life that illuminates little for those who knew nothing of her and underwhelms those who know a fair amount. A number of subjects like her relationship with her children are boiled down to brief scenes like her driving away from her children to go to her first day at parliament. The Falklands receives the most of the time spent as PM (a couple minutes total), which mostly consists of her "you go girl" moment with Haig, who pissed off both her and Reagan. Otherwise it's brief b-roll of strikers/protesters and other highlights with punk for background music.

If this was intentionally noir, it'd still be bad but comprehensible. But Streep means it's intended for mainstream. Independent of politics or taste, this is a bad way to introduce Thatcher to a broad audience, largely ignorant of her or the UK during her time in the conservative party.

king of bats

I love seeing the Conservatives jumping to the Great Lady's defence...
seeing as it was they who defenestrated her.

Is it really insulting for her dementia to be portrayed or is it just that you all feel a certain twinge of guilt for backstabbing your supposed hero.

Say what you will about Labour and leftists in general, but we are loyal to those who serve our interests and our ideals.

patrick veale

I cannot imagine why anyone would want to do a bio of MT from the standpoint of her supposed dementia. She was a major historical (divisive) figure in British history. So let's get to the core issues about her contribution. I have no idea what illnesses MT might have at present, and though I disagreed with her when PM, I will not go to see a movie that portrays her as dotty.

DJ Glasnost

If anyone is looking for another Thatcher biopic, the BBC produced a interesting one back in 2009


Might require a little bit more knowledge of British politics, but lacks Streep and Broadbent, both of whom I feel might distract from the actual people they're portraying.

joe the plumber2

I find the conclusion of the movie review as disappointing as the fixation on an aging Thatcher: “The Iron Lady” is a shining example of a popular British genre: the biopic as conservative propaganda.

joe the plumber2



My memory of Margaret Thatcher starts from the (first) Tokyo G7 Summit in 1979, after which I left Japan on the same day as she did, and ends in the day I left UK to return to Japan in March 1992.
I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly side of her premiership, but was fortunate not to have witnessed her twilight years.


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