The Iron Lady: De-politicising Margaret Thatcher

Meryl Streep manages to reveal the human aspect of Mrs T that has thus far stayed hidden.

For those born after the 1980’s let me first clarify that The Iron Lady is not the female version of Iron Man. The ‘Iron Lady’ was the sobri­quet given to Britain’s first female Prime Minister and cold warrior par excellence, Margaret Thatcher. Having clarified that, let me also tell you that in this movie the role of Thatcher is played by another woman of substance, Meryl Streep. To those who know and love her (because once you see her perform, you can’t resist admiring her), rest assured that she is as brilliant as ever in this role.

The Iron Lady is not at all a traditional biopic. Neither does it follow the formulaic linear progression of the main character from childhood to the pinnacle of her career and then the inevitable de­cline into obscurity. Nor does it focuses on a single important event in the life of the protagonist, like The King’s Speech or The Queen. Abi Morgan, a British screenwriter, has adopted a narrative that cleverly employs the flashback technique (or for those more familiar with literature, the stream-of-consciousness technique). The film familiarises the viewers with the present condition of Mrs Thatcher as old and near-paranoid, living with ever so prevalent memories of her rise to power, and hallucinating the comforting presence of her dead husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent).

Unsurprisingly, some crit­ics have savaged the rather peculiar direction by Phyllida Lloyd. Their main objection is the de-fanging, de-clawing, and de-politicising of the character of Mrs Thatcher. While it is true that the movie does not look at the conservative policies of Mrs T in detail and focuses instead on the personal aspects of her life, for those who are expecting to debate the merits and demerits of Mrs T’s politics I would like to remind them that it is a movie, not a documentary.

Meryl’s performance is nothing less than miraculous. Sometimes during the movie it seems as if she is playing Mrs T even better than Mrs T herself, a rare feat for any actor. Her performance is not a mere impersonation; her voice is not mere mimicry. She manages to reveal the human aspect of Mrs T that has thus far stayed hidden.

The movie not only celebrates the successful career path of Mrs. T, but also the demise of her political, intellectual, physical and mental capabilities, and finally her resignation to a passively secluded life. It is about universal issues such as affection, relation­ship dynamics, and living with loneliness. As Phyllida Lloyd, recently stated: ‘It is simply not about her policies, it’s about power and the loss of power, the contemplation of old age and what it feels like to get old and to try and cope with life on your own.’

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 5^th, 2012.