How can such an iconic woman’s life be represented to it’s ‘true’ nature? By hiring Meryl Streep of course.
The Iron Lady follows Margaret Thatcher, the only woman to be Prime Minister in the UK and the trials and tribulations of her 11 years in command of the country. Her strengths and her failures, her highs and her lows; however you want to say it. The film follows the easy step of telling this woman’s story through her eyes, flashbacks; as she, in her twilight years begins to realise theres more to what she lets herself believe in her current state. The film throws us from one thing to another as Thatcher remembers what happened, something that proves hard to follow in the long run.
Margaret is shown in her elderly state, fragile and lonely thanks to her growing dementia and lust for her husbands return from beyond the grave, something which brings true emotion to the screen at times where it is certainly needed. Meryl uses the former Prime Minister’s vulnerability to bring the character to life and show us a truly emotional and sad character that she has become. A shadow of her former stern self in a somewhat different world.
Holding my hands up at this point, I know little of Margaret Thatcher and her time as Prime Minister, only that she is the only woman to lead and that she went through a tremendous amount of strain and pressure to get done what she thought the country needed. A film that advertises her life shows little information on what really went on, there isn’t enough detail for someone like me to simply know what is going on and why; yes she was Prime Minister and yes she was loved and hated, but I need more than a flashback to really grasp this woman and her tactics and why she did what she did to get where she got.
Meryl Streep’s brilliant portrayal of this woman is what strives the film through it’s 105 minutes of flashback storytelling, something that I feel is VERY deserving of the Best Actress Oscar come Feburary. Meryl simply isn’t just portraying this Margaret, she is Margaret and it’s what makes the film so powerful and so emotional. I certainly found her performance to be gripping at times and so emotional also; that it brings a truly strong woman to be shown as someone who isn’t who she used to be. Something that I know isn’t what anyone would want, to be reminded of who you used to be.
Overall the film presents Margaret Thatcher to be a independent and strong willed character; brought to life by one of Meryl Streep’s finest performances of her career. The dodgy storytelling aside, the film allows people in the dark like myself to get a glimpse of who this woman was; it’s only to really know who she was and what she did, I need a little more than a memory.
joshuafarmer05 
