The Iron Lady

“The Iron Lady”

Directed by Philipa Lloyd

Written by Abi Morgan

With Meryl Streep, James Broadbent, Alexandra Roach

Meryl Streep has had 17 Academy Award nominations. Her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” has just won her a Golden Globe. Is there anything she can’t do?  

“The Iron Lady” is an intimate portrait of Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Britain from 1979 to 1990. She, a grocer’s daughter, came up from modest origins to become the most influential Prime Minister of England since Winston Churchill, and the first female leader of the Western World. She was one tough lady who, among many other things, confronted Gorbechev, took an unwavering stand against unions, dealt with England’s anemic economy, pushed the Brits into the Falklands War and allowed fasting Irish prisoners to die. She also revived a sense of British pride.

But this film really is a portrayal of an aging Thatcher who has dementia. 

As “The Iron Lady” begins, the elderly Mrs. Thatcher (Meryl Streep) fumbles to give the correct change to a clerk in a grocery store. She returns home where her caretaker is upset that she has ventured outside. She sits down to breakfast with her husband, Denis, and has conversation with him, pointing out that he uses too much butter on his toast. She helps him choose a suit to wear to a meeting. She brushes the lint from his jacket. Only Denis has been dead for several years.

Mrs. Thatcher shuffles around her house, reflecting on her life and career. Flashbacks briefly illustrate her childhood and proceed to highlight her many accomplishments, including her feisty and stubborn interactions with Parliament, her meetings with foreign dignitaries, her launching Britain into the Falklands War.  

But “Iron Lady” is not an epic film about Margaret Thatcher’s consequential life. It never really shows what made her exceptional.  Instead it deals with her dementia, her flights of fancy, as when she converses with Denis, her confusion and how she tries to mask it. In this way, the film humanizes her, but it is a bit cruel because Mrs. Thatcher is still alive at age 86.

The reason to see this film is Meryl Streep. Her transformation is absolutely uncanny. Her voice, her accent, her posture, her demeanor are flawless; she is Margaret Thatcher. She captures the idealistic, confident younger Margaret Thatcher who is tone deaf to criticism. She embodies the fading dignity of the older Mrs. Thatcher, now restricted to her home, struggling to maintain her poise.    

We have gotten so used to Meryl Streep’s acting abilities that we almost take her for granted. It seems her expressions, her nuance of character are givens. As “The Iron

Lady” she dazzles. You cannot take your eyes off of her. In a way, her performance overpowers the film. All the more reason to see “The Iron Lady.”

War Horse

War Horse

Directed by Steven Speilberg

Cinematography by Janusz Kaminski

With Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Peter Mullen, Niels Arestrup, Jeremy Irvine, Tom Hiddleston

Steven Spielberg’s “War Horse” resurrects the old-fashioned epic type of filmmaking, complete with sweeping panoramas, powerful music, direct storytelling and gut-wrenching appeals to emotion and sentimentality. There are those who will criticize it for that very reason, but take note, “War Horse” is a strong , stirring and affecting film for everyone.

The film begins with gorgeous sweeping panoramas of a verdant countryside in Devon England. A mare is giving birth to her colt as World War I begins. The colt is Joey, the protagonist of “Warhorse,” a story based on the 1982 children’s novel by Michael Morpurgo.

Young Joey is purchased at auction by a drunken farmer(Peter Mullan) who overpays for the horse to spite his landlord, who is also bidding on the horse. When he takes the horse home his wife (Emily Watson) is furious, but his son, Albert, is entranced by the beautiful animal. They bond and Albert trains Joey. However, the bills for his father’s farm must be paid, and Joey is sold to an English officer (Tom Hiddleston) and the animal is taken across the English Channel. Albert is devastated, and vows to somehow reconnect with Joey, who will now be used as a war horse. 

The story proceeds through a series of Joey’s owners, including the English officer , an elderly Frenchman farmer (Niels Arestrup) and a kindly German officer, among others. Joey inspires those who encounter him with his intelligence and “heart.” All of this is shown against the backdrop of the violence and slaughter of World War 1, a very far cry from the paradise of Devon’s bucolic beauty. The battlefields in War Horse are absolutely brilliantly staged. Warfare had been modernized, and tanks and machine guns ravage the combatants, along with swords and carbines. Fields are strewn with bodies of humans and their mounts. 

There is a harrowing scene culminating when a panicked Joey becomes ensnared in the ubiquitous coils of barbed wire used to keep back the enemy. A badly injured Joey can’t move, and both a German and an English soldier work together to free him.

Steven Spielberg’s sentiments have always been anti-war and this film chronicles the horrors of conflict: the fear of the soldiers; the total devastation of the landscape; the ugliness of slogging through the mud with heavy artillery; the fragmentation of families.  He does not focus on the gore and guts of conflict, but he does not need to: The message is delivered loud and clear. 

There are those who will say that “War Horse,” being a Disney production, has too many maudlin, sentimental and contrived moments. That the Devon countryside is just too idyllic; that Albert’s house is too charming and too perfect; that the heart-wrenching separation of Albert and Joey has been  manipulated to bring tears; that the appeal to nostalgia is too obvious; that the “Happy Ending” is just too unrealistic. To them, I say, “War Horse” is a movie full of adventure, sensitivity and soul. It is an entertainment with stunning cinematography (Janusz Kaminski) and top notch performances from a mostly unknown cast. The film illustrates the power of animals to bring out the humanity

in people. 

“War Horse” is a sweeping Hollywood epic of the finest sort. I suggest you take a box of tissues to the theater.