I’ve seen a fair amount of intense venom being thrown at The Iron Lady, long before even this trailer arrived to give us a decent look at the film. Its very existence disgusts many people: people who find it unacceptable for such a figure to be painted with shades of gray, but that’s how movies, stories, and life work, so here we are.
One thing that is clear form this brief UK trailer for the film is that we’re not watching The Prime Minister’s Speech, with a white-washed interpretation of Thatcher. While the orchestral strings and interstitials can’t help themselves but to keep up the usual weepy “extraordinary story” shit of biopic trailers, what I see here is a pretty frank telling of events that do take the perspective of the figure in question, but is laying out her actions plainly. What I see teased is more a political Aquirre: Wrath of God than an inspirational tale of right-wing girl power, and it isn’t shying away from the fucked up shit she did, nor is it romanticizing the “iron” fist with which she did much of it.
So while some will remain disgusted by any presentation of Thatcher as anything other than a villainous cartoon with a devil ears and a red pitchfork, I think it’s clear that there might be a complex, interesting story to be told here- a story from which one can draw what are, in many cases, the obvious moral conclusions from Thatcher’s actions.
Ultimately if you can make Downfall, you can make The Iron Lady.
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While I do agree with you somewhat about Downfall, I think part of the criticism lies with the fact that neutrality is taken. Jarhead remains as a good example of a film that fails to offer insight, it merely is, leaving aside questions of mission and practice. Iron Lady looks to do the same: offer no insight, instead take rather neutral look at a tame fascist. The thing about Downfall happens to be that we know Hitler is a monster, Thatcher is different. The presentation of her focuses on her Cold War actions, her Reagan qualities. It ingnores her as a politically dangerous and intolerant individual. For this film to take a neutral perspective focuses on this idea, of her as a political giant not a giant political problem.
I think an outright condemning biopic of Thatcher would be totally the wrong way to go. I’m happy it is trying to stay fairly even-handed, in as much as it isn’t shying away from the less controversial aspects of her life and indeed is drawing much of its plot from them. Unlike something like J. Edgar.
I actually think this trailer is pretty good. I’m actually kind of interested now — I’ll probably see it, depending on the reviews.
My biggest problem wih this is Streep’s over-the-top-scenery-chewing ‘impression’ of a real person. To me mimicry isn’t acting, this kind of performance needs to be reined-in to work on a human level. Reminds me of Cate Blanchett’s impression of Katherine Hepburn in the Aviator.
Agreed, from the first still that we saw i knew this was going to be a scenery chewing impression. Performances are so much better when actors make it there own and not an impression.
I think it’s impossible to avoid “impersonation” when playing a public figure like this. It’s what layers you add to the impersonation that make the performance successful. Meryl Streep is a great actress and I think this will be very interesting work.
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