I watched The Iron Lady a couple of hours ago.

Spoilers.

First and foremost, it must be said that Meryl Streep deserves every accolade and award she will undoubtedly win for her performance as Margaret Thatcher. It was more than an Oscar winning performance. She really embraced this role beyond all reasonable and understandable boundaries and limitations. It’s one of the greatest on-screen performances in a long, long time. I know this is all everybody seems to be talking about in the film, but it is a truly remarkable thing. Truly more than a mile away from her hard-knock cut-throat fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, regardless of the somewhat unusual similarities there appears to be between the characters. There’s true diversity in her performance. A true commitment, and her love of the dramatic arts rings true for all that watch.

But that’s enough about Meryl. Promise.

The film was marketed as a biopic. Before its trailers were released, there was an air of discomfort and uncertainty of whether the balance of devotion and menace would be captured in how the public view Thatcher. I was surprised when I first saw the trailers at just how personal and affectionate it seemed. I thought the trailers probably overemphasised this in order not to create too much controversy, but, actually, I was completely wrong.

This film quickly asserts itself as a life story, rather than a biopic. We bear witness to the frail, aged Thatcher in her moments of psychological insecurity. The sequences are fictionalised, creating a character for whom we have nothing but sympathy and sadness. Flashbacks reveal more of her story, from her youth spent in a grocer’s to her years in office. The difficulty is, however, in how it sits somewhere between a life story and a biopic. The film awkwardly hinges between the two, which, although they may appear synonymous on first glance, are actually quite different, and generate very different responses from audience.

The controversial decisions and rulings of Thatcher’s cabinet are somewhat glazed over. There are occasional montages of riot footage and public revolt, but the focus remains fixed on Margaret. She is in almost every shot of this film. The implications of her actions are so vague that our sympathy with Thatcher is made awkward and uneasy. There is obvious civil unrest, but we are only seeing her dedication and commitment. Especially with something so current in the collective conscience of the audience, it is difficult for us to see these scenes vanished by scriptwriters and directors as if insignificant or irrelevant. 

There were also some slightly iffy moments with how sequences have been chopped together. Awkwardly situated montages with poorly chosen music seem to be plugging gaps between scenes which don’t match. It’s like there has been an attempt to create a juxtaposition between public reaction and Thatcher, but it’s so little explored it’s difficult to support as an argument. Sometimes there were short scores of music which faded in behind her speeches which only served to connote a slightly pretentious scriptwriter rather than the strong rhetoric of Thatcher’s speeches.

I did really enjoy the journey of the film and I felt that the fictionalised scene of the elderly Thatcher worked in the narrative as a whole. It just needed to sit on one side or the other: biopic or life story. I loved the film, and I loved the experience of seeing it, but everything that was truly remarkable and outstanding about it was down to Meryl Streep. There was much Oscar buzz before this film was released, but I think it may have blown it in its awkward middle ground. But just because something isn’t a big winner at the awards ceremonies doesn’t mean it’s not a good film. This is a brilliant watch. Invigorating, inspiring, and, at times, even heartbreaking. And, of course, for me it’s worth it just to see the performance of the year from Meryl. Perhaps even the performance of her lifetime.