November 20 - The Iron Lady

This movie has a scene that happens today – November 20. I hope you enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

THE IRON LADY

In 2008 an elderly Lady Thatcher, suffering from dementia prepares to dispose of her deceased husband’s personal effects. She talks to a vision of her deceased husband Denis. Her relationship with both her children is strained. She thinks back on growing up as the daughter of a grocer who told Margaret Roberts to ‘go her own way’. She wins a scholarship to Oxford. Breaking into the male dominated Conservative party she is selected to run for Parliament, but loses. On her second try, after marrying Denis Thatcher she is elected. She fights her way into the all male cabinet and is selected as Secretary of State for education.  Thatcher later becomes leader of the Conservative Party and in 1979 is elected Prime Minister, after a series of strikes. Shortly before her election an IRA bomb kills her mentor Airey Neave.  After her election she works to break the unions. Thatcher leads the country through the Falklands War and survives the IRA’s attempt to kill her in the Brighton Hotel Bombing. She later institutes the very unpopular poll tax, works to end the Cold War and opposes European integration. On November 20, 1991[1:26:28 to 1:27:20] whiling dining at Versailles, Thatcher is deposed by her own party. Back in the present she tells the vision of Denis goodbye.

This is very mixed-up film. The constant flashbacks and forwards make for a very confusing movie. If you didn’t know anything about Thatcher, you’d be no more knowledgeable about her at the end. However, Streep as usual does a fantastic, spot–on job with her portrayal.

Margaret Thatcher: The Downing Street Years by Margaret Thatcher (HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1993) at pages 842 – 844 gives the date of this dinner.  

Director - Phyllida Lloyd

Awards – The film won the Best Actress (Streep) and Best Makeup Oscars at the 84^th

                 Academy Awards.

Runtime – 1 hour 44 minutes

Released – December 26, 2011

Starring –

Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher

Alexandra Roach as young Margaret

Jim Broadbent as Denis Thatcher

Harry Lloyd as young Denis

Iain Glen as Alfred Roberts

Olivia Colman as Carol Thatcher

Anthony Head as Geoffrey Howe

Nicholas Farrell as Airey Neave

Richard E. Grant as Michael Heseltine

Susan Brown as June - Margaret Thatcher's live-in caregiver

Martin Wimbush as Mark Carlisle

Paul Bentley as Douglas Hurd

Robin Kermode as John Major

John Sessions as Edward Heath

Roger Allam as Gordon Reece

David Westhead as Reg Prentice

Michael Pennington as Michael Foot

Angus Wright as John Nott

Julian Wadham as Francis Pym

Nick Dunning as Jim Prior

Pip Torrens as Ian Gilmour