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11:34 a.m. - 2012-04-22
IRON LADY
THE IRON LADY, the Margaret Thatcher biography starring Meryl Streep, unaccountably begins with Thatcher in her dotage: alone, confused, apparently hallucinating, and dwelling in the past. Not a very promising beginning for a movie about one of the most important women of the 20th century.

But wait, it gets worse. Instead of leaving the elderly woman in her lonely apartment and beginning a flashback look at her political career, the movie careens back and forth between brilliant dedicated younger Thatcher and that same lonely old woman. Not necessarily pleasant to be reminded that even the best of us end up old and lonely.

And the flashback scenes are too much flash and not enough narrative. Its like looking at a highlight film of her career. Not much background on the issues she confronted and the opponents she defeated. There is one inexplicable scene where a middleaged prime minister Thatcher seems petty and abusive to one of her underlings. No explanation or context that I could see.

As always Meryl Streep turns in a brilliant performance, seeming to disappear into the character. Acting so good it doesn't seem like acting. But the script and direction don't rise to her level. What was potentially a great story becomes a story poorly told, and the strange obsession with the infirmities of her old age only serve to cast a pall of pessimism over the entire movie.

 

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