#3 - The Iron Lady

Is Meryl Streep the most talented actress of all-time? The debate goes on, but with her performance as Margaret Thatcher in 'The Iron Lady' almost certain to garner her a record 17th Oscar nomination, the Academy continue to think she's a cut above the rest. 

The role is as baity as they come: biopic of high profile historical and political leader? Check. A make-up and hair job that makes the actress unrecognisable? Check. Dramatic life spiralling downwards from articulate, powerful leader of people to senile old woman with dementia. Check.

And Streep delivers. Not since her astounding performance in The Devil Wears Prada has she embodied a role quite so completely - she just is Thatcher. From the intonation, to the facial expressions, and even down to the walk. She has done her research and made the most perfect impersonation. Comparing Streep's performance to Michelle Yeoh's somewhat less 3-dimensional portrayal of a political figure last week as Aung San Suu Kyi in 'The Lady', poor Yeoh comes in a distant second place.

However, one performance is not enough to make a movie, and 'The Iron Lady' is dissatisfying in every other department. Screenwriter Abi Morgan has done away with a typical chronological biopic, replacing it with the musings of an old lady dealing with dementia. This provides a huge contrast between the articulate and powerful Margaret of the Downing Street years with the confused and senile Margaret of the present day. It allows Streep to show us what she can do as an actress, but it provides us with a lot of screentime in which she just sits in a darkened flat, spouting nonsense to no-one in particular, or to an imaginary friend in the form of her dead husband, Dennis (Jim Broadbent). This time could surely have been put to better use by going into more depth as to why Thatcher made the decisions she did, and the cause and consequence of her actions. The key events are in the film: the Falklands, the miners' strikes, the riots, IRA bombings including the party conference in Brighton and Thatcher's eventual resignation from office - but because so much time is spent in the present day, none of them are given depth and are skimmed over. Further to that, they stand alone and aren't put into any kind of context against each other, meaning the film ends up being a series of disjointed scenes that don't seem to correlate or tell any kind of story arc at all.

Phillida Lloyd's direction is even more messy than in her similarly unfocused 'Mamma Mia'. She doesn't seem to know if she is making 'JFK', 'The Notebook' or an episode of 'Spitting Image'. The film works as none of the above.

Broadbent and Olivia Colman, playing Margaret's daughter, Carol, seem to play the whole thing as if they are in one giant comedy sketch and as a result any emotional impact of Thatcher's failing memory and mind are completely nullified, and any real drama is lost.

Neither does it work as a political document. Historical inaccuracies are abundant. In particular, Lloyd's decision to show Thatcher as the only woman in the entirety of the House of Commons, against a backdrop of only white men is just incorrect and frankly quite patronising to the audience. If it's intended to make Thatcher's story more impressive, maybe Lloyd should have focused more on her battle to get into office in the first place, rather than wandering around newsagents and buying a pint of milk.

What makes this the biggest shame is that so many big male political figures have had great movies made about them: JFK, Nixon, Guevara, to name but a few. Lloyd wanted to demonstrate that a woman can do the same, but has given us a wishy-washy story that doesn't demonstrate anything of the sort. In the movie, Thatcher mentions that what she feels is wrong with the world today is that people don't think any more, they only feel. Lloyd should have used this line to her own advantage and created a film that made people think. But as it stands I think the only thing that this film is good for is seeing the majestic performance of an exquisite actress in full flow.

Lowdown: A movie that neither makes us think, nor feel, actingly solely as a showcase for the talents of Meryl Streep.

Score: 4/10