In The Presence of The Iron Lady

Bewilderment, empathy, sorrow, these are all emotions one will feel after watching Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady. However, these are not emotions that were felt by Maryl Streep’s character, Margaret Thatcher. Streep portrayed a cold, hard woman who was not interested in the lives of her nation’s people, but in the future betterment of her nation as a whole. Thatcher opened doors for women in Britain that had never been opened before, yet she was never interested in how far she could go as a woman, but how far she could go as a politician. In one of the first scenes, when a young woman is thanking Thatcher for all that she has done, Thatcher replies back, “It used to be about trying to do something, not it is about trying to be someone.”

Screen Writer, Abi Morgan riddled the movie with flashback scenes that leave the audience with a sense of confusion at many points, uncertain how this scene of that scene are going to fit into the film later on. The faster snap flash backs are more unnecessary than anything else, and they play with the timing and lineation of the movie in ways that may be difficult to determine. However, I have to hand it to Lloyd. She was able to confuse the audience member just as much as Streep’s character is throughout the film.

The film flips back and forth between a current day Thatcher and her need to make difficult personal decisions and her younger years when she had to make difficult political decisions. It reveals the home life Thatcher had to give up in order to make a change in her nation, and the time she lost with her children and her husband. It covers the condemnation she experience when she made decisions during times of recession and times of war. It covers the love her nation felt for her when she was rallying and running for Parliament and Prime Minister, as well as the physical changes she had to undergo in order to be taken seriously among her peers. The film also covers her difficulty with her husband’s death as well as her recovery after multiple mild strokes. It’s a classic tale of turning nothing into something and the sacrifices that must be made in order to achieve one’s goals.

Lloyd was able to play with the speed and overlapping lines in one particular scene that truly gave the viewer a sense of what was going through Thatcher’s mind. After she visits the neurologist, she has a constant run of flashbacks while present day people try to talk to her. The chaos within the scene is a demonstration of what must be going on within Thatcher’s mind. There is a sense of anxiety and urgency felt within you that makes you want to run screaming from the room; and I’m sure Thatcher felt the same way when she was plagued with her confusion and hallucinations as side effects of her grief and her current health.

In film, one of the hardest things to execute can be portraying a real life character. There isn’t much room to move creatively goes, and historical accuracy is always important. Streep pulls off a remarkable likeness to Thatcher as does the rest of the cast in their portrayal of those in Thatcher’s life. Margret Thatcher in her younger years was portrayed by Alexandra Roach. This is Roach’s first full-length silver-screen flick and she was a perfect pick for the role. She had an essence of meekness and frailty about her that made her aggressive, educated voice more shocking than it would have been from someone with more assertive features. Her overall performance was well executed and kept a likeness to Streep’s version of Thatcher.

A common theme throughout the film was terrorism-- an act of terrorism had recently been committed at the beginning of the film, Thatcher also experience acts of terrorism against herself as well as her colleagues during her time in Parliament. These acts of terrorism were parallels of what Thatcher was feeling within herself. Throughout the film, everyone around her is telling her how she should live her life; she has lost all control of her life, much like those involved in the attacks. She was taking suggestions from her daughter to see the doctor or from the house help to organize her schedule as seizure of her rights to take care of herself.

Overall, The Iron Lady wasn’t horrible, but it left something to be desired as far as organization goes. Thatcher’s story is remarkable, and even if someone doesn’t agree with her politics, it’s still noteworthy what she did for Britain and its relationship with Ronald Reagan and the United States. This is true regardless of how heartless or merciless Thatcher may come off.