Tories Assemble.

Earlier in the year The Iron Lady, a film about the life of everybody’s favourite female British Prime Minister, was released in cinemas. This one also did well at the Oscars with Meryl Streep winning best actress again, and to be fair to her, it was well deserved.

Streep is the best thing about this film; she makes the role her own and obviously has some passion about the story. However the film really isn’t perfect.

The main thing I found wrong with it is that it’s set in the present day where Thatcher is depicted as an aging woman with dementia who is looking back on her life. This is how they show the past events, in flashback form, which is okay but it can get a little irritating with all the switching from past to present and then back again.

No matter what your views on Thatcher the main story is always going to be the past events, however the film only really dedicates around 50% of itself to the past while the other half is on the present. When in the present the film just seems to be making the audience feel sorry for her as she totters around her luxury flat thinking that her husband Dennis is still alive.

This is actually the main plot of the movie, not the miners’ strikes, not the Falklands war, not her rise to stardom, instead tottering about takes centre stage. It’s a bit of a shame.

Jim Broadbent plays Dennis and is very good in his role, as most of the actors are. He’s very funny from start to finish, winding up Maggie like some sort of trolling memory. But though this present plot does make you feel sorry for her a bit, it doesn’t hide the fact that most people want to watch this film for her past.

I’m not Thatcher’s biggest fan to be honest, but I don’t really want to get all political about a biopic about her life. She’s important because she was a woman who managed to get herself into a position where women were all but outlawed. She proved one thing in her reign as Prime Minister: women can mess up a country just as much as men can. We all really are equal.

So overall The Iron Lady is okay but it isn't anything spectacular. It's good in that it's historic and though sometimes it gets a little too pro-Thatcher for my liking it does generally stay unbiased. I just hope the filmmakers aren't trying to create some sort of weird Tory Avengers squad. If it gets revealed they're making a film called Major I am gone...

Final Verdict: 3 Stars. Not suitable for miners.