- This movie isn’t really about Margaret Thatcher, it’s about an elderly lady on the cusp of a deep spiral into dementia. Which… is this really appropriate? For one, old-people-with-dementia films are so 2006. More importantly, though, love her or hate her, if you’re going to make a movie about Margaret Thatcher, is this really the area you focus on?
- Greatly missing from this film is any actual depiction of the struggles Thatcher would have gone through as a woman in politics. She tells us numerous times throughout the film how she’s had to fight every day of her life, blah blah blah, except we never really see much of that aside from one silly moment where someone in the opposition describes her as “screeching”. I don’t want to diminish the blatant misogyny present in describing a woman as someone who screeches, I’d just like to see a little bit more of the opposition she faced.
- Conservatives depress the hell out of me, holy Christ. I also love the privilege denying that usually comes part and parcel with being a Conservative (or a conservative); Thatcher goes on and on about having to work for everything she’s made herself up to be but somehow ignores the fact that an Oxford education may give one a leg up on the competition. Ugh. BOOTSTRAPS!
- I don’t know much about British history after WWII, but based solely on the brief glimpse of terrible 1980s Britain in this film I’m not surprised that the worst of the football stadium disasters happened during Thatcher’s administration. Also, trigger warnings for some historical footage of violent protests featuring some police brutality and gruesome images.
- If you had to go by this movie alone, you’d think that Margaret Thatcher was literally the only woman in parliament for the duration of her entire career.
- Young Denis Thatcher came across as kind of a douche and so I thought it was appropriate that he was played by the guy who played Viserys Targaryen on Game of Thrones.
- On the other hand, Jim Broadbent managed to be quite delightful as the elder Denis, so who knows.
- I enjoyed how Denis and Margaret referred to each other as DT and MT.
- Every time Thatcher would ask where her son Mark was, I kept thinking he must be involved in a coup somewhere.
- I feel like I haven’t seen Giles from Buffy The Vampire Slayer in a million years, nor Richard E. Grant since Spice World.
- I think I knew this but probably forgot until now: Thatcher first ran for office in Dartford, where wee Mick Jagger and Keith Richards would have been wandering around primary school together. England is small!
- Meryl Streep was Meryl Streep good in this, which means I don’t feel wowed because my expectations are so high to begin with. I don’t know, I’d rather see her as Batman.
Categories: 2 Stars
I hated this movie for all the reasons you mentioned up there. And young Margaret and Denis were simply unlikable.
And is it me, or does Meryl Streep play way too many roles with funny voices and goofy caricatures lately? It feels over the top to the point that it’s a distraction. Clearly, I did not enjoy this movie.
funny talk of the town piece about a publicity stunt for this movie gone wrong