Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady."
(Credit: The Weinstein Company)(CBS) Meryl Streep turns in what may be her best performance yet in Phyllida Lloyd's political biopic "The Iron Lady."
Told from the point of view of the former British prime minister, the film is a character retrospective more than an account of the rise to power of arguably the most powerful woman in the Western world. It is strangely de-politicized in that sense.
Special Section: The Golden Globes 2012
Streep conquers the role of Thatcher, capturing her nuances to perfection. The film opens with Thatcher as an octogenarian, suffering from a failing memory and having suffered a series of strokes. She is seen cracking an egg for her husband, Denis, at the kitchen table and lamenting the price of milk.
Lloyd's perspective is non-linear, hence we see Streep's Thatcher slip in and out of consequential scenes, hinting at her powerful rise to glory, but not dwelling on it.
The political ratio of the film is just enough to give viewers (who may not be familiar with Thatcher's 1979-1990 tenure) insight into Britain in the 1980s. It touches upon her battle with trade unions at the time and embellishes her bond with Ronald Reagan, who was a perfect match for her political ideologies.
At heart, however, "The Iron Lady" takes a stab at what the woman behind the iron facade was like.
As dementia begins to set in, we are given glimps es into Thatcher's relationship with her husband, played by Jim Broadbent, and her children, Carol (Olivia Colman), who helps care for her, and Mark, who lives in South Africa and whom the audience never sees.
Screenwriter Abi Morgan imagines Thatcher sneaking out to buy milk for her husband's breakfast tea. Denis, however, has been dead for years. That doesn't stop him from being a continual presence throughout the film, a chatty, affable man to her stiff, no-nonsense attitude.
As she goes about packing up his belongings for charity, the elderly former Tory party leader is whisked back to the time when she was a young woman - the daughter of a grocer, an Oxford graduate and a woman with political aspirations. It also tracks the courtship between her and a young Denis Thatcher and tracks their marriage during tumultuous times.
Streep dominates and is triumphant in capturing the essence of Thatcher down to each minute detail. It's not just the coiffed hair, the carriage and the characteristic tone of voice. It's the way she pulls back seamlessly from a razor-sharp woman with fierce, uncompromising leadership to a softer, aged woman reminiscing about her hey day.
In the movie, the war over the Falkland Islands forms the crux of her rise to success, as she stands up to an "Old Boy's Club", very much in evidence at Parliament. On the other end of the spectrum, we see her downfall, her bitter relationship with the unions and her strained exit from No. 10 Downing Street.
Unlike with many biopics, the subject of this one is still with us. At 86, Baroness Thatcher, the woman once simultaneously reviled and revered and described by her daughter as "cast-iron proof" with a "blotting paper" memory, has become a recluse, isolated by growing dementia. In fact, British Prime Minister David Cameron recently denounced the timing of the film, saying it was "insensitive" and could have waited "for another day."
Th e film has received mixed reviews for its departure from a strict docudrama, but Streep's consummate character portrayal has won her accolades and a nomination for the upcoming 69th Golden Globe awards in the Best Actress category and possibly an entree to another Oscar nomination.
If it does, it is well deserved.
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