65DN finds that the controversial film blends inspired acting and imaginative direction with a mediocre script that tries to do too much.

The Iron Lady, the Meryl Steep-led biopic of Britain’s first female Prime Minister, is possibly the most hyped-film of recent years. Mrs Thatcher, a Conservative, led Britain from 1979 to 1990 and her story has all the makings of a scintillating movie.

From modest origins as the daughter of grocer, she got into Oxford University, married a wealthy businessman and, in 1959, became one of Britain’s only female MPs. As Prime Minister, she neutered the Trade Unions, won back Britain’s Falkland Islands from Argentina, survived an assassination attempt by the IRA (a group who want Northern Ireland to cease to be part of the UK), fought against the EU and fell from power in the manner of a Shakespearean tragedy.

Her economic policies made Britain, in many ways the Greece of 1979, a significant power once again but they also made her deeply unpopular with some, who saw her as harsh and uncaring. Revelations that she suffers from dementia and sometimes has to be reminded that her husband Denis is dead, if anything make her life all the more dramatic and worthy of a big screen production (of which this is the first).

The Iron Lady centres around ‘Lady Thatcher,’ in the present day, clearing out her late husband’s wardrobe. Constantly moving in and out of the delusion that he is alive, she talks to his ghost and this inspires flashbacks, apparently in chronological order, ranging from discovering she has got into Oxford to being toppled from power by her colleagues.

The acting is superb. As predicted, Streep’s depiction of Thatcher breaks new boundaries. She manages both to be Margaret Thatcher and at the same time to dramatically interpret, rather than simply imitate, the woman who still casts a long shadow over British politics. This is at its most impressive when Streep portrays Thatcher’s descent into madness. It is even hinted at, in a spooky and highly unexpected way, during her time in office, testimony to a highly skilled director (Phyllida Lloyd) who also shows, without it seeming clichéd, the lights dimming at the end of the film, as if to parallel the dimming of Thatcher’s mind. My only criticism of Lloyd is the intermittent use of unnecessary and Hollywood-esque background music.

Many of the other actors are also extremely impressive. Despite few recordings of her from the time, the young Margaret Thatcher (Alexandra Roach) manages to blend shy insecurity with gritty determination. Jim Broadbent (Bridget’s father in Bridget Jones’ Diary) captures the comical nature of Denis Thatcher without making him seem ridiculous. Even the bit part actor who plays Michael Foot (Michael Pennington, e.g. Return of the Jedi) – the eccentric leader of the Labour Opposition in the early 1980s – does a noteworthy job with his few lines. Pennington neither sounds nor really looks like Foot but his interpretation somehow seems to make sense.

Playing Thatcher as tormented by dementia would, for Streep, have been much harder than playing her beating the unions or climbing the greasy poll. It requires real imagination and depth of emotional understanding and Streep rises to the occasion with a poignant performance. All I can say is, ‘If only she’d been allowed to concentrate on just the dementia induced relationship with Denis!’ Superb actors and a good director are let down by Abi Morgan’s mediocre script.

The fundamental problem is that Morgan tries to do too much. The parts of the screenplay that focus on Thatcher’s dementia are well written and often moving. The plot device of using this dementia to have her retreat into her past political career is believable. But the problem is that, in trying to cover Thatcher’s entire life from adolescence onwards, the film, especially with regard to her Prime Ministership, comes across as superficial.

It runs far too quickly through important aspects of her life, leaving emotions undeveloped, questions unanswered and, accordingly, a sense of disappointment, even of being cheated. Her career as Britain’s first woman Prime Minister is dealt with by looking at the Unions, the Falklands and her downfall and even the latter is very shallowly and quickly looked at.

The movie would have been much improved if Morgan had focussed on one, or maybe two, parts of Thatcher’s life and developed them. The downfall has been done in the 2009 television film Margaret, which used its stresses as a device to allow her to recollect her career from becoming leader of the Conservatives (1975) up to the presented in 1990. Her rise to becoming an MP has also been examined in the 2008 TV drama The Long Road to Finchley (this being the constituency Thatcher represented in the British parliament). So perhaps it could have been the Falklands or the Unions or both. But Morgan spreads too much plot too thinly and the potential catharsis of the film suffers as a result.

But even if she had done that, the script is still flawed. Perhaps it is acceptable occasionally to take remarks which historical figures made in other contexts and have them say them in different contexts as a kind of dramatic licence. But Morgan uses this trick so much that it’s almost as if she couldn’t be bothered to think of her own dialogue. Perhaps it is acceptable to tinker with the historical facts a bit to create a better drama but Morgan does this so much that it’s positively misleading, especially for a non-British audience.

And one of her tinkerings is plain ridiculous. She portrays the Falklands Conflict (1982) as being before the clash with the Unions (1984) in what is otherwise a chronological sequence. This is presumably because she wants a climax and regards the war as more dramatic. But it was winning the war which (a) ensured that Thatcher got a second term in power with a massively increased majority in the 193 election and (b) gave her the confidence to take on the powerful Trade Unions who were, in her view, holding Britain to ransom. The war is needed, in terms of character development, to give Thatcher the confidence to face down what she saw as ‘the enemy within.’

Every other Thatcher film is and will be in the shadow of this one because of the mega-star nature of its leading lady. It is such a shame that Streep’s skill had to be not so much wasted as under-inspired with a script that, though it has some wonderful moments, just has too many flaws. The 2009 film Margaret lacks both the superb acting and the moving dementia portrayal, but it is a better all-rounder. It is tighter, even if it doesn’t have the flare or stardom of The Iron Lady. If only Streep could have been in that, perhaps with Phyllida Lloyd directing it.