'Iron Lady' less about Thatcher, more about aging - msnbc.com

Meryl Streep plays Margaret Thatcher and Jim Broadbent her beloved husband Denis in "The Iron Lady."

By Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

REVIEW

For a thorough look at the life of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, head to the library and check out a thick biography. Meryl Streep's new Thatcher film "The Iron Lady" is not that biography, it's a Hollywood movie, a fictionalized guess at the current life of the elderly Thatcher, who suffers from memory loss that some say is Alzheimer's.  As was done with Leonardo Di Caprio as J. Edgar Hoover  in "J. Edgar," the film introduces us to a historical figure years after his or her prime, then offers flashbacks to major life events.

As such, it's a terrific and touching portrait of aging. Streep captures the failings of age, the hesitating walk, hands that suddenly find it difficult to fit a phone back into its cradle, the eyes that are always looking for someone who isn't there. 

As far as Thatcher's political career, the more you know about it going in, the more fascinated and frustrated you'll be.

The Falklands War gets a decent amount of time, but Bobby Sands and the Irish hunger strikers, debate over the Euro, and Thatcher's friendship with Ronald Reagan receive don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-them scenes. The historical events that are shown are there for a reason -- to demonstrate Thatcher's mettle, or the barriers put in her way due to her gender or lower-class background. That's understandable, but for those who know little about her career (read: most Americans), it can feel like we're putting pieces in a puzzle without seeing the cover picture.

The film keeps circling back to a modern-day Thatcher who's haunted by a friendly ghost. Only she can see and hear her beloved late husband Denis (a delightful Jim Broadbent), who cheers and advises her as she struggles with a life half-lived in the past. He's both a welcome and annoying friend -- in one touching scene, Thatcher turns on all the appliances in her kitchen, telling herself that the screeching noise will block out his presence.

Streep is, of course, magnificent as Thatcher both later in life and in her prime, but Welsh actress Alexandra Roach deserves praise, too. She plays a twentysomething Thatcher as a tenacious grocer's daughter who cannot be turned from her course.

You won't leave "The Iron Lady" feeling fully educated about Thatcher's years in power or what she was like as a friend, mother and wife. We see snippets of her childhood, but no sense of what drove her to political heights no British woman had ever reached. In one almost throwaway scene, her young twins beg her not to leave them, but we don't get a sense about whether she was conflicted about what her work took away from  them.

But you do leave the theater impressed once again with Streep's ability to sink into another person, body and mind, and with a remind er that even the most powerful among us must someday, if we live long enough, sink into the inescapable arms of age.

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