"The Iron Lady" - Starring Meryl Streep - Page 3

Did the real Thatcher made those remarks exactly like it's being portrayed?
I only ask as the filmmakers never made any attempt to communicate that this film was based on facts, and I'm talking about private conversations not events or public interviews or press conferences.

Yes her make up was excellent for the most part except her neckline in one scene, it looked like a dinosaur to me, very thick and unnatural.

I didn't mean that it would be a cause for controversy. Just that as a political and personal film, it fails at both. Not because it portrays Thatcher overly good or bad, but because it just doesn't portray her in any light beyond the superficial. If you want to characterize it, it's Margaret Thatcher, the Cliffs Notes.


Yeah, but I still feel it misses that target as well. It was a stuffy, stogy, motionless, and almost pointless film, with Streep's performance being the only redeeming part (and don't get me wrong, she acted the hell out of some not very good material.)

No joke, I was watching it with friends, and thinking "This film is TERRIBLE!" But no one else said anything, so I thought it was just me, or that they were really into Streep's performance. But then in the end we all thought the same thing, that we wanted to speak up and say, "this isn't working, let's watch something else." Next time we'll know better.

Couldn't agree more. The writing and direction were so wretched, I admired Streep's formidable talent all the more for managing to breathe a bit of life into an otherwise turgid mess.

As to Thatcher herself, I stand by my position that, like FDR, she served way too long and was a major player in far too many historically important events for any credible claim to be made that she is historically insignificant. I've heard the same thing said of FDR and reject that notion, too. Such claims, it seems to me arise from politics and emotion not from objective historical analysis.

I don't particularly disagree with you on the film in general it just seems I hated it less then you did, that's all.

To the bold section:
That's usually the case.

As noted in earlier posts, I didn't hate it either. That's not to say I wasn't disappointed, though. As a life long politics junkie and an admirer of Meryl Streep's talent, I was looking forward to the The Iron Lady. I thought it had a chance to be a very good film, even a great one. Unfortunately, though, it turned out to be a below average biopic, despite Streep's magical performance as Margaret Thatcher.


I agree that political opinions sometimes unduly color historical judgments. Generally, though, the passage of time lessens this tendency. The point of my post was to observe that even wrong, or even evil, decisions made by heads of governments can be and usually are historically significant. Consider, for example, the reprehensible Adolph Hitler. That we didn't like what a political leader did doesn't mean that the leader's actions won't be remembered. In fact, it's usually quite the opposite. I am not equating Margaret Thatcher's policies with Adolph Hitler's. My point instead is that both will be remembered, whether fondly or not.

Aside from being the first female Prime Minister I think Thatcher was historically insignificant and succeeded in things despite herself, at least as depicted in the movie. I am not a Thatcher historian and aside from the film have little interest in her. As far as FDR is concerned your viewpoint is different from mine so let's leave it at that.

Well, you're a nice guy and I'm a judgmental a-hole.

I get that you liked it. I think I've just become less tolerant of biopics that want to cover too much. No one in history was interesting every freakin' moment of their lives.

(No, not even you. Yeah, I'm talking to you over there.)

What more can one expect from a liberal production portraying an conservative enity.

Ok, I used the word "hate" without thinking about it as much, I guess it's being thrown around so much it's true meaning gets lessened, so let me say I was less critical then you. I wouldn't say I liked it, but certainly I gave it a pass where you didn't. Oh and I'm not a nice guy nor an A-hole, just me.

Although I would be the last to deny the propensity of some Hollywood lefties to flog their own politics in their work, I didn't see that in The Iron Lady. Instead, I saw an awful screenplay and a director without the ability to clean up the mess it made. I thought the film's weakness was that it was confusing and often slow moving, not that it was anti-Thatcher. In fact, I thought Streep made Thatcher appealing, probably more appealing than she was in real life.


Hey, that "hate" stuff may have been my fault. After all, I was the guy who brought up Adolph Hitler.

Yep totally agree, they blew the movie on the craft level, then any other motivation they might ever had there.

No, I meant that I've seen people using the word hate to attack other posters if they had an opposing view of theirs either of a film or it's creators, which I really hate.

Of all the posts in this thread that have the word "hate" in them, 1/2 are yours.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/searc...rchid=21775561

Oh, the irony....

Yeah, I rented it last night to commemorate her passing. I was a kid in the 80s and grew up in a conservative household. I suppose I had a favorable memory of Thatcher in connection to President Regan and growing up a ‘straight ticket Republican’ type. Not that I had any particularly overwhelming ideological ties to the Republican/Conservative Party beyond my upbringing.

I didn’t know what to expect and no offense to Meryl Streep, but I came away just thinking – wow! What if they made a movie of President Regan that depicted his last years with Alzheimer’s fumbling around like that? IDK it just seemed like a less than complimentary way to tell her story and I suppose I wasn’t prepared for it.

Not to say that there aren’t political figures that I would LOVE to see portrayed in a less than complimentary light, but I wasn’t prepared for this to be what it was. Not exactly the tribute that I might have believed it would be, but outside of the plot centering on her having lost her mind in her elder years it was somewhat educational regarding her life story. LOL

I didn't realize movies were supposed to be "complimentary...."

It's all in the title: The Iron Lady....a public persona she wore in politics with great pride.
The movie points out once the "Iron" mask was pulled away, she wasn't made of iron after all.

Although there were many complaints from Thatcher's friends and supporters that the film unfairly portrayed her last years, I didn't take them seriously. My problem with the film was that it was so leaden and slow, even the usually magical Meryl Streep couldn't breathe much life into it. Thatcher was a far more complex and interesting character than the film indicated. I think my IMDb vote of 6 Stars out of 10 was about right for The Iron Lady. The producers would have been well advised to hire the guy who wrote The Queen to write a screenplay about Thatcher.

The Queen was a terrific screenplay.

Straw Man much? I don’t think anywhere in my post I attempted to argue that movies were ‘supposed to be complimentary?’

My post merely comments that this particular movie caught me by surprise in not expecting it to be told from such a frankly rather ‘disrespectful’ perspective in my opinion. If perhaps there was even some rational reasoning beyond it ‘Pulling the Mask off the Iron Lady’ maybe I would have an easier time accepting it. Like if it was her mission in her political career to sabotage and undermine research into dementia and how karma dealt her a deserving hand to suffer it herself. IDK. It just seemed to me like a pretty pointless depiction of her faltering mental condition in her elder years.

It wouldn’t be the first time. I didn’t quite expect J Edgar to be so derogatory from seeing the trailers for that matter. I wore one of my father’s FBI hats to the theater LOL. I probably would have rethought that decision if I had known what to expect. I actually bought my parents a copy for Christmas last year.

That said, I’m sure for those who may have lived through the Thatcher years as an adult or otherwise and opposed her conservative politics may have enjoyed to see her depicted this way. I only remember her as seeming to have a good relationship with President Reagan during a relatively more serene time in my life.

I was obviously a little disappointed that it wasn’t a more appropriate memorial of her on the day of her passing in my personal opinion. I see others share similar sentiment after viewing it long before she actually passed on.

Peter Morgan was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar and, thanks in large measure to Morgan's great work, Helen Mirren won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Elizabeth II in The Queen.

Straw man?
Here, lemme refresh your memory:

"Tribute?"

The movie is "derogatory?"
It ain't a documentary....it's a fictional movie.

I didn't realize movies were supposed to be "appropriate memorials..."

I don't get why you seem to think Hollywood movies are supposed be "complimentary or appropriate memorials" to alive or dead people.
Sorry, but if that is the kind of stuff you are looking for this forum isn't gonna be of much help to ya.
People around here just don't approach films that way.....

Personally I found the film to be a big fat bore. It made a colossal mistake of spending half its running time following around a loopy old Thatcher who talked to ghosts. Audiences agreed, since the film tanked and was ripped by most who saw it. It's just a bad film, made by people who are on the record as not liking Lady Thatcher's politics.

This film could have been amazing. Anyone who read the two volumes of her biography would understand this.

I agree. As noted in earlier posts, what could have been an amazing, and maybe great, film with the deliciously multifaceted Maggie Thatcher as its subject was ruined by a meanspirited and, perhaps, fanciful, examination of the Iron Lady in her dotage. What a waste!

LOL, Ok man, whatever. I attempted to set it straight what my impression was and I believe you are determined to skew my statements to create an argument where there is none. It’s not that I disagree with what you are saying. I disagree with your assertion of what my ‘position’ is.

This is actually a pretty classic ‘straw man’ argument. It’s not my first discussion board to participate in. I’ve encountered many of these before now and I’m sure I will encounter many more. I’ll try to make note of your disposition for future reference here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Earlier I found a most interesting retrospective of the political life of Lady Thatcher in The Economist. It is coldly objective and informative. Were it that The Iron Lady screenplay could have been half as informative as the piece to which I have linked.

No, you did not....
As a general rule, most here understand how to weave one's political POV thru a post.
Nice try....

Fine...you don't want to take ownership of your OWN words.

If you are not willing to defend the very posts you create, then I can't help you.

And there is post 18,634! Congrats bro!

Oh brother, everybody just move on and chill out. Grab a brewskie. Something.

Glad I did not waste my time seeing this.

The problem isn't so much that they showed Thatcher suffering in her twilight years. She actually was by all accounts having a miserable time. It's just that the film didn't put it in context. It was a whistle-stop tour of her life crosscut with her final years, rather than, say, showing her at her height during the Falklands Wars and contrasting with her later years to add poignancy.

And it wasn't anything politically motivated to show it that way, it was incompetence by the filmmakers. They just tried to show too much of her life and that rarely works in film. Films don't do entire lives well unless you focus on specific defining events and put them in the spotlight. This film didn't do that. They weren't trying to slam Thatcher (if they did, they made a mistake in hiring Streep as she kept Thatcher human through a very schematic script.) They just bit off more than they could chew.

Contrast with The Queen, that takes one specific time in Elizabeth II's life, the political crisis arising from the Royal Family's response to Diana's death, and shows the emotional impact. That makes a statement and makes an entertaining film. With The Iron Lady, they thought Thatcher's entire life could be shown and then show where she is now (at the time of the film's release) and thought it would be something. It wasn't.