10 January 2012

The Iron Lady

Directed by: Phyllida Lloyd
Written by: Abi Morgan

The connection I made to J. Edgar was that both movies are about a mean and miserable old person looking to justify their poor choices—to vindicate themselves in the sure-to-be-unkind eyes of history. But those might just be my own anti-Thatcher biases at work. The movie actually seems pretty sympathetic to Lady Ironsides, which I would imagine has something to do with the unusual number of women involved in its production: director, writer, and superstar, ladies all. This is a movie about the experience of being a Western woman in the 20th century, trying to achieve more than your mother would have been allowed to, confronting and overcoming society's pervasive boy's club mentality. And the filmmakers kind of love Thatcher for everything she accomplished, as evidenced by her epic exit walk when she steps down as prime minister—in slow motion, to some Romantic aria, across a floor strewn with rose petals. Or how she totally doesn't die while washing that tea cup. The Iron Lady is more interested in the effects of her ambition on her family, a look at the loneliness that accompanies power—that sort of thing—than in the social effects of her policies, which are vaguely summed up by video images of people protesting...

Keep reading my conversation with Benjamin Sutton at The L Magazine


Watch the trailer:

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