Ironing out the politics

The Iron Lady, directed by Phyllida Lloyd. Out now.

Posted by Kevin Leetion on January 13, 2012. Filed under Cultural Resistance. Posted with the tags:Culture, Film
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Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher and Jim Broadbent as Denis Thatcher. Photo: Alex Bailey / Courtesy of Pathe Productions Ltd

Phyllida Lloyd’s Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady seems to have divided opinion amongst film critics and appears to have been met with varying degrees of disapproval across the political spectrum. Some on the right have referred to it as ‘a left-wing fantasy’ while some opponents have described it a hagiography.

The former is palpable nonsense, but the latter is also not entirely fair.

Such a divergence of views would be surprising were it not for two factors.

The first is that the protagonist (or rather the person on whom it’s supposedly based) is alive and the memories of her time in office and its destructive impact remain with many of those that were affected.

Secondly, is the decision by Clark and scriptwriter Abi Morgan to effectively suck the polemical politics from her story.

By taking away what made her loved by some and reviled by others might have been an attempt to maximise its appeal but has had the effect of displeasing many.

The very mention of her name elicits a response and it is ultimately impossible for people to leave their politics and personal experiences at the ticket office.

That said, there are valid artistic reasons for trying to focus on a more personal approach.

The film is set in the modern day, with a physically weak Thatcher (played convincingly by Meryl Streep) struggling with mental illness and the loss of her husband.

Her career is told through a series of flashbacks almost as if they are being viewed through the prism of her own, faltering, memory.

This allows you to excuse the portrayals of her opponents (whether they are Richard E Grant’ Heseltine, boisterous Labour MPs, or snobby constituency party Tories) which otherwise might seem excessive.

Instead the object of the film apparently is to focus on the loss of her political, mental and physical power, by comparing the elderly figure with the dynamism of the rest of her life.

The depiction of her younger days have led some to conclude that the film depicts her as a feminist, but this can only be arrived at by someone who has either not seen the film or defines ‘feminism’ in such broad terms so to render the idea largely meaningless.

This film does show a woman prepared to argue her point of view and infiltrating a particularly powerful boys club but that’s about it.

She does nothing to challenge gender stereotypes or to advance the cause of female equality and challenge the structures of patriarchy- the photograph of her posing with the all-male cabinet she appointed is faithfully reproduced. “I’ve always preferred the company of men” she tells her daughter, Carol.

Indeed, she finds it impossible to form a relationship with other women, from her mother and the neighbourhood girls of her adolescence, to her own children (she disappoints Carol when she insists on phoning her brother in South Africa for a second opinion).

In fact, beyond having to put up with a put-down from a Labour MP for ‘screeching’ and some snobby comments from some constituency party Tories, you wouldn’t even know from this film that she had much to overcome.

However, its failure to provide context to her political life is a problem that the film fails to overcome. There are occasional uses of original news footage but it’s largely superficial.

Images of picket lines and riots flash up on screen but with no indication of how the daily lives of people were impacted in practical terms.

Massive events from her life are conspicuous by their brevity- not least the Miners’ Strike. Even her own demise is depicted as much is a result of her own hubris and bullying of Geoffrey Howe rather than any policy differences or wider outside political pressures.

Removing her words and ideology from their consequences renders any supposed insight into the character partial at best and as such the film doesn’t fully succeed on its own restricted terms.

“Feelings do not interest me, thoughts and ideas are what matter the most,” Thatcher says on more than one occasion. Her political philosophy mattered to her-indeed it defined her- but Morgan avoids dealing with it in any depth.

There are interesting things in this film, and its central performance is undeniably excellent. However, there is so much more that could have been said on which they’ve chosen to stay silent.

There is no need to fear that people too young to remember will watch this and come out feeling positive about her- there’s not enough politics in it to understand either her attraction to some or why she is still hated by so many.