Iron Lady is an attack on feminism and Margaret Thatcher, and an awful movie. It's been marketed as a biopic, though Thatcher is still alive, but it isn't. Most of the film shows Thatcher in her dotage, moping about her house, with a daughter and assistants trying to keep her going despite dementia. This depressing subject takes up perhaps 2/3 of screen time. The rest is flashbacks to her youth as the admiring daughter of a grocer, and her time as Prime Minister, with least attention paid to her years as PM.

The film very deliberately rebukes her feminism. She was the first woman to scale the heights of British politics, and much is made of her determination to "do something," to lead a life of significance. But the point is not her eventual triumph, rather it is the hollow unreality of that triumph, as this film would have it. Her dementia takes the odd form of hallucinations of her late husband, with whom she converses throughout. She obviously loved her husband, but when he was alive she placed her public duties first. Now that he's dead and her career over, she thinks of little other than her husband and children. In a powerful flashback to her husband's marriage proposal, she says she doesn't want to die cleaning up a tea cup. The film's last scene is of her alone, cleaning up a tea cup. The film's main point is that Thatcher, and presumably all women, is a wife and mother first, and that a woman's career, no matter how brilliant, is only a distraction. I don't call this feminism. Critics have made much of the fact that the director and writer are women, and that the film shows Thatcher's victory over sexism. But it doesn't celebrate, or even enjoy, that victory. It is a long lament over a life misspent and a successful person brought low. It is a tragedy. I don't know the inward truth of Margaret Thatcher's life, but in the world, she most definitely "did something" and led a life of significance.

Her politics remain controversial to this day. The controversies are lightly and briefly touched, but the film takes no sides, and rather distrusts the strength of Thatcher's convictions, which are frequently contrasted to the craven political calculations of her advisers. I noticed how timely were Thatcher's controversies, as alive today as then, both in Britain and the US. I believe Thatcher was right. But this is perversely not a political film, despite having a politician as its subject.

(Old) Thatcher is played by Meryl Streep, her (old) husband by Jim Broadbent. Both are brilliant, great performers at the top of their game. Watching them at work is the only reason to see this film.

Does it handle the Falklands Liberation with any Hail Britannia?

Moi

It does handle the Falklands Liberation, with a distant view of the public's Hail Britannia. The film takes no point of view, but we hear from Thatcher's advisers, some of whom felt the Falklands were too unimportant to justify war.

It was just what Argentina needed money and they staged a war with their 8 airplanes then waited for the Brits to get there, 3 weeks later they surrendered at once and asked for aid, and got it.

At least that's what I remember.

River

Riverwind (imported) wrote: Tue Jan 17, 2012 7:27 am It was just what Argentina needed money and they staged a war with their 8 airplanes then waited for the Brits to get there, 3 weeks later they surrendered at once and asked for aid, and got it.

At least that's what I remember.

River

Actually, it was a pretty bloody war, with ships sunk on both sides and airplanes downed. Because a supply ship with helicopters on board was sunk, the British had to march and fight their way from one end of the island,where they landed, to Stanley, the city they captured to end the war. Stanley was on the opposite end of the island from where they landed. Because of air cover from Argentina, most of the fighting was done at night. It was really touch and go for the British trying to fight way over a thousand miles from home, while the Argentinians could fly their planes from home to the Falklands. A numerically superior fighting force in Stanley surrendered without a fight to the British, after they were told the British would hold them responsible for any civilian deaths that resulted from a fight. The British had defeated the Argentinian forces on the hills around Stanley.

After the war, the British offered to return Argentina dead, but Argentina refused their return, claiming they rested on Argentina soil as it was in the Malvinas, their name for the Falklands. 255 British, 649 Argentinians, and 3 civilian Falklanders were killed. Argentina still claims the Falklands.

The Argentina military government, propped up by the popularity of taking back the Falklands, fell when the war was lost.

I read/saw something about that war recently. They said that the citizens were British, and didn't want to lose that citizenship and become Argentinians. They asked the Empire to save them.

The Falklands Liberation was no cake walk

I remember the Brits complaining to the Frenchies about the sale of

French Exocet plane to ship missiles to the Argint-I-nes.

It was a case of keep the press out of the war room when the newspapers announced Argentinian bombs were not exploding. Like; "Here is the proper setting for this model of bomb." Cost more lives then the "following Osama's cell phone signal" inappropriate release.

Moi

There is no free press in a military theater. As it should be!

I haven't seen this movie. I'll wait until it gets to Cable and then watch it.