The film “Iron Lady” starring Meryl Streep has attracted a fair amount of Tory ire. Rob Wilson, MP for Reading East said in the House of Commons:
This week I attended the screening of The Iron Lady and was disturbed by the way in which the film portrayed its subject. Can we therefore have a debate on respect, good manners and good taste, as I found the film—although brilliantly acted—to be disrespectful to a Member of this Parliament?
While I once met Mrs Thatcher, and Denis, it will come as no surprise that, as someone who got involved in politics as a reaction to the Poll Tax, I would be quite happy for any film to show disrespect to the political career of Mrs Thatcher.
However, Rob Wilson and others are
missing the point, while giving the film-makers free publicity and something of a cause to rally people around.
Only a handful of people know what Mrs Thatcher is like these days. Yet, this film speculates on her condition and centres on a bewildered old lady wondering about her flat, talking to her dead husband and agonising over getting rid of his clothes.
On that specious framework, is hung a whirlwind series of “cut and paste” snippets from Mrs Thatcher’s life. The characters are many, but most of them make only fleeting appearances.
Then eventually this old lady decides to get rid of her husband’s clothes.
Can you see what’s missing there?
This is a film about one of the most controversial figures in British history. Her life contained the most extraordinary wealth of conflict and colour. And yet this film doesn’t really have a plot. It doesn’t really have developed characters, aside from the fictionalised impersonation of an old lady. (Even “Denis” is a tad one dimensional.) And the central action relies on supposition.
Why speculate on what Mrs Thatcher is like nowadays when there is more material in her real, known life than you can shake a stick at?
Ultimately this is a very unsatisfying film. It is poorly written. Meryl Streep, some say, gives an excellent performance. One scene, when she harrangued the cabinet, seemed world-class, in my view. That was about it.
We shouldn’t allow controversial remarks from Tories to cloud the fact that this isn’t actually a very good film.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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10 Comments
Polly Toynbee wrote the other day that the coalition is the “most vicious and inept” government in her lifetime. She must have a very poor memory. I would never go to see this film: I don’t care how good Meryl Streep is, how well written it might (or might not) be – I remember Thatcher’s premiership and loathed every moment of it (with the single exception of her appointment of Ted Hughes as Poet Laureate). I cannot think of her with anything except visceral hatred – not a response I am proud of, but also not one that I had towards John Major who has, I think, been badly treated by history. And as far as David Cameron is concerned, I still don’t know what to make of him and am genuinely puzzled by people who respond to him with strong feelings.
Let me get this right – you’ve reviewed this film, and concluded that it “isn’t actually a very good film”. Yet, you’ve not actually seen it…(apart from perhaps one scene).
I must remember not to read anything else you’ve written about…
No. I saw the whole film last night. I even watched all the credits go up until the screen went black. I have rephrased that bit to avoid any room for misunderstanding.
David Cameron was right when he said that the film isn’t really about Thatcherism; it’s about getting old. As I escorted four little children out of our tiny local cinema the other day (we’d been to see “Arthur Christmas” even though it’s January!) we bumped into what looked like the works’ outing of the local Conservative Association – all 1950s perms and twinsets – as they queued to see the “Iron Lady”. I was too mean to warn them that the film they were about to see was not really about their heroine at all but about dementia.
Paul’s entirely right that it’s a terrible film precisely because of its decision to focus heavily on Thatcher “as she is today”. That decision neatly manages to be tremendously offensive to a woman currently enduring dementia, as well as her family, who refused, quite understandably, to attend viewings AND, at the same time, a really awful narrative decision that destroys the chief point of interest in the protagonist (i.e. her controversial political career).
However, I don’t think you should downplay the offensiveness of such a speculative portrayal of someone who is still alive. It is a gross violation of privacy in my view. So no, not ‘never mind disrespect’, although calling for a Commons debate is pretty stupid and shows that backbench MPs are rather kicking their heels at the moment.
Good point @Tom King. And @Ruth Bright – spot on.
tonyhill.. I could not agree with you more ! I was trying to list the good things that her government did, and I could not think of any, but then I’d forgotten Ted Hughes. Can anyone suggest anything else that should be on this list?
I agree with Tony Hill, I have the same memories. Although I loathed her government I guess we can give it credit for the Anglo-Irish agreement. Her confrontation with Enoch Powell over this was astonishing.
The worst thing about her reign was the way it allowed market forces to exploit our oil reserves. If only we conserved them instead. The price of oil was cheap then, just imagine how much better off we would be if we could be net exporters of oil at it’s current price?
Peter,
1. Lancaster House Agreement led to foundation of Zimbabwe, moving on a situation whihc had been in stalemate for 14 years (though this was bitter sweet because it led to Mugabe’s domination of the country).
2. Establishing Select Committees to monitor each government department.
3. Signing the Single European Act
I have not watched the film, but if it is really about a widow who once had a very powerful job demanding high intellectual powers, but is now aged and suffering from dementia, that’s a powerful theme. As a thoughtful piece of artwork, such a film would be well worth making and could make compelling viewing – it says deep things about the human condition, it plays to our own fears of what will happen to us as we grow old. I have no great confidence that Hollywood would be able to produce such a film, but I disagree very much with the premise of the argument, which is that if this is the intended theme of the film it is intrinsically bad because of that.
To produce suc h a film while the person depicted is still alive is, I agree, a little distasteful. On the other hand, had it been made about a historical figure safely dead, it would fall into being a period piece. Quite clearly that it is about now, the world in which we live, makes it (or should make it, I am writing on the basis of little more knowledge of the film than given here and thinking more about how it could be than about how it probably is given its provenance) a much more powerful piece. It would lose its impact too were it about a purely fictional character. If it were disguised in some way, the character given a different name, the setting a sort of Britain-like country but with token differences, it would look somewhat silly and we’d all be saying “but it’s a thinly disguised Margaret Thatcher” anyway.
If the aim of the film is as Paul suggests, then it would seem to me appropriate that the political events are given in a somewhat cartoonish way. The events are to give the background, they are not really what the film is about. For the sake of the drama they probably have to be given in a way that is sympathetic to Margaret Thatcher’s politics.
I write this with my belief that Margaret Thatcher was either a fool or an evil genius, the single most damaging person to our country in the last century, whose real politics were, or at least have led, to the exact opposite of what she and her supporters claimed they were about. If I were to learn that she was a secret communist, a KGB plant, put in place to wreck our country and leave the back door open so that Russians and Chinese could buy their way to power here, I would not be at all surprised, it would indeed by the most logical explanation of what she did when she led the government.