The Iron Lady (Phyllida Lloyd, 2011)

[dad1153]

You can all save money betting on this year's Best Actress Oscar office pool. Meryl Streep is so fucking dead-on as Margaret Thatcher (even the 'off' moments when she isn't talking or the center of attention Streep commands the movie) that this is about the perfect vehicle to hand over the hardest working actress in showbusiness a new piece of hardware. Even if I can think of a dozen better lead female performances in 2011 movies, Streep's Thatcher impersonation is just too neat and tidy an Oscar bait for most Academy members to resist. Problem is, the movie has Streep but little else that's as interesting or fun to watch. Unlike "The Queen" (which had other characters, situations and plots to keep the running time padded) "The Iron Lady" settles for a vanilla-retelling of the triumphs, setbacks, highlights (the Falkland Islands war getting a good portion of screen time) and politics of her era without any depth or more than a surface lip-service mention of who/what she stood for. There's plenty of crowd shots and archival footage, but it's all framed in the narrow 'how does this make Margaret feel/look' focus of most biopics about contemporary figures. If you actually know history or have a political ideology other than conservative "The Iron Lady" will drive you mad with what amounts to the beatification of Thatcher. Even the look/sets of the movie fail to evoke their era since it mostly takes places in indoor sets (Downing St., House of Lords, etc.) that look the same today as they did 100 years ago. It's clear that director Phyllida Lloyd cared more about speculating/guessing what Thatcher and hubby Dennis (Jim Broadbent, good but just another extra in the Meryl Streep one-woman show) talked about alone than a critique or factual evaluation of Thatcher's triumphs and failures as a leader. If you love the woman then come cheer her cinematic canonization pronto. I'll go rewatch my "Queen" DVD for Michael Sheen's dead-on Tony Blair cameo.

[knives]

I'd sooner dip my head into a beehive than watch a hagiography on this not comical Mussolini.

[matrixschmatrix]

The reviews I read likened this more to Edgar and W., I imagine that it's not exactly that Sarah Palin campaign commercial movie. I don't know that I like Edgar Hoover as a historical figure any more than I like Lady Thatcher- and you were a fan of that movie, weren't you, Knives?

[knives]

I enjoyed the Eastwood, but part of it is that I (immaturely I know) see him as a lesser evil (at least he's not alive to be fawned over) and the movie was brutal toward him in an honest fashion. Plus I have more trust in Black and Eastwood than the guy who directed Mama Mia.

[domino harvey]

There's no doubt that she'll be nominated. There's no chance she will win for this, though.

[antnield]

...the guy who directed Mamma Mia.

You mean Emma Thompson's mum?

[dad1153]

There's no doubt that she'll be nominated. There's no chance she will win for this, though.

I disagree. I didn't like the movie but came away feeling Streep is the odds-on favorite and nobody else can catch her in time. Most Academy members probably despise Thatcher's politics but they all love Meryl, and she hasn't won an Oscar since '82. That's almost 30 years of (mostly) good work going unrecognized. The consensus will probably be that, like Scorsese with "The Departed," its Meryl Streep's time. The only chance for her not winning is if "Iron Lady" gets no good reviews and zero box office, but as "The Hurt Locker" proved a couple of years back even lousy BO as an excuse for not winning doesn't play.

[MichaelB]

...the guy who directed Mamma Mia.

You mean Emma Thompson's mum?

No, Phyllida Lloyd. Not Phyllida Law.

But you're right about her not being a guy, though.

[knives]

Guy's unisex at least were I come from.

[MichaelB]

I'd gladly go if the cinema would not only permit but guarantee Rocky Horror/Sing-a-long-a-Sound of Music style heckling - but I suspect I'll pass for now and end up watching it on telly a few years hence out of curiosity.

[Brian C]

Hasn't opened here in Chicago yet but honestly the trailer could hardly make it look worse. And it makes Streep's performance look like a parody of Streep more than a real actual Streep performance. And those teeth look fucking ridiculous.

I'll probably go see it - I get most of my movies free anyway, and I'd rather see it and hate it than not see it and forfeit my right to hate it - but man oh man am I dreading it.

There's no doubt that she'll be nominated. There's no chance she will win for this, though.

I do not understand the logic employed to arrive at this conclusion. You may end up being right but I'd take her against the field right now.

[colinr0380]

I loved the Mark Kermode take on the film during his 2012 preview video: "It contains all of the political clout that you would expect from a film directed by the maker of Mamma Mia".

He's getting good at these damning with faint praise statements, the last memorable one being that Tower Heist was "Brett Ratner's best film"!

[Rsdio]

I'm still having trouble convincing myself that this film is real.

About the only non-expletive phrase the trailers drew out of me was "Well she's nailed the voice, at least."

[colinr0380]

According to the BBFC the reason for the 12 rating lies entirely with the stock footage which sounds as if it will be the only glimpses of 'reality' in the film. (I doubt the Falklands stuff will deal with the Belgrano incident, and likely Pinochet will get passed over too)

I'm not sure if Britain can cope with both this and Madonna's W.E. released in the same year!

[jamie_atp]

I thought this one had been rated over 18s only - not suitable for miners?

[jamie_atp]

Sorry.

[MichaelB]

According to the BBFC the reason for the 12 rating lies entirely with the stock footage which sounds as if it will be the only glimpses of 'reality' in the film. (I doubt the Falklands stuff will deal with the Belgrano incident, and likely Pinochet will get passed over too)

Pinochet isn't listed in the cast.

Neither is Norman Tebbit, come to that - unless he's one of the anonymous 'Cabinet Ministers'.

[knives]

I thought this one had been rated over 18s only - not suitable for miners?

I shouldn't have, but I laughed. I'm assuming that this is playing nowhere in Scotland?

[jojo]

There's no doubt that she'll be nominated. There's no chance she will win for this, though.

I disagree. I didn't like the movie but came away feeling Streep is the odds-on favorite and nobody else can catch her in time. Most Academy members probably despise Thatcher's politics but they all love Meryl, and she hasn't won an Oscar since '82. That's almost 30 years of (mostly) good work going unrecognized. The consensus will probably be that, like Scorsese with "The Departed," its Meryl Streep's time. The only chance for her not winning is if "Iron Lady" gets no good reviews and zero box office, but as "The Hurt Locker" proved a couple of years back even lousy BO as an excuse for not winning doesn't play.

I don't know. I've heard more buzz about Michelle Williams-as-Marilyn lately than Streep-as-Thatcher, at least going by tabloid media and the like.

[MichaelB]

I'm assuming that this is playing nowhere in Scotland?

I hope (and bet) that someone will do a comparative box-office survey, along the lines of the one that revealed that Looking for Eric did disproportionately well in Manchester, but noticeably badly in towns and cities renowned for their hatred of Manchester United.

Incidentally, they do have one Tory MP in Scotland, though that still makes them a more endangered species than the panda (Edinburgh Zoo has two of those).

[Finch]

It'll play in Scotland but I hope it flops so hard that they'll take it off their schedules after the opening week.

PS.: People in Merseyside are also more likely to picket any cinema showing the film than wanting to actually see it.

[Hail_Cesar]

What? There are still leftists governments somewhere in the world? I must move in Scotland? Oh wait that's in UK with Cameron...

I saw the trailer in theatre before PINA and never heard about that film before... I laughed, then cried, then laughed...

[oneshotmonkey]

Shouldn't you guys see the film before judging it? \:D/

[MichaelB]

Shouldn't you guys see the film before judging it? \:D/

Dad1153 has seen it, and his opinion is squarely in line with every other review I've read - i.e. "Streep is amazing, but the film is so bland as to be actively offensive regardless of your political persuasion". I'd be curious to read a sharply different take, not least because such a thing might persuade me to check the film out myself, but I haven't seen one yet. (And if I do read one, I'd prefer it to be by someone who isn't a professional contrarian, which rules out Armond White, Toby Young, David Cox, etc.)

Most of the other posts are about the film's subject (and how that might affect its reception, regardless of its actual content), or facts about it that can be gleaned from the credits or the trailer.

In other words, this is nothing like the situation where a now-banned buffoon launched a vitriolic attack on a critically-acclaimed film that he hadn't seen, purely because of ideological objections to its funding body, the class background of its director, and indeed the alleged editorial bias of one of the publications running a good review - indeed, the author of the review, who also contributed to the thread, was rather surprised to be told that he'd been ordered to write a positive piece, on pain of having it spiked, and that all his other reviews of UKFC-funded films were also required to be raves (even though they clearly weren't).

That's the kind of blinkered idiocy that people round here object to, not anything in this thread.

(Mind you, it was very entertaining, and I'm personally sorry that the guy got banned. But maybe he's sneaked back under a different username - you never know.)

[oneshotmonkey]

No idea what you're talking about but, yes, that does sound remarkably different... :-k

Good to see that everyone's keeping a sense of humour about things in any case!