Traveling to the movie, I remarked to my good friend Marissa that each and every year, you can write, in ink, "Meryl Streep" under the 'Best Actress' heading on your Oscar ballots, and just fill in the film title later on. If awards can be seen as a measure of greatness (which the Oscar is, generally), Meryl Streep is, without question, the actress of this generation. Each year, Steep's mere presense in a film's cast makes it an Oscar contender... and if the film isn't good enough, Streep typically shines anyway, and usually picks up numerous award nominations for her efforts.
Unfortunately, The Iron Lady is one of those films.
Margaret Thatcher holds a very important place in history, that can't be denied. The things she accomplished in her lifetime are things Hollywood biopics are made to show. The problem with this particular film is the way her story is told, through flashbacks of an elderly and lonely Maggie Thatcher. Such a framing would be all well and good, but the flashbacks merely show Thatcher's rise and ultimate fall from power; they do very little to further the framing plotline. I do wonder what how this film could have been with the elderly Thatcher portions eliminated.
As hinted at before, Meryl Streep is the attraction in this film. All of the traditional "Streep-isms" are found in the film: the eye rolls, the sighs, the "thinking eyes", the spot-on accent... but, as usual, they are placed and timed perfectly, allowing Streep to completely inhabit the character. As usual. While I live for a great Meryl Streep performance, which this is, I do long for something new from her.
(Side note: Streep is quite possibly the only actress I can think of that uses the same tricks and characteristics in film after film, yet every time creating a new, vivid, lively character)
In all, The Iron Lady was a bit of a disappointing film... though certainly entertaining, if only for the performance of Meryl Streep (as expected). I left the film feeling I knew more about Margaret Thatcher than I did a couple of hours earlier, which I suppose is one of the points of a biopic. To talk Oscar chances, Streep will find herself in a close race with The Help's Viola Davis... I'll reveal my pick on Oscar Sunday!
