>>it's too much about her senility in later years and her husband's sadness as he copes with that,<<
Eh. He can't be all that sad, given that he's dead. She's imagining him as present.
I heard many of the same complaints, though, and I think I was helped by my low expectations. For what it's worth, my mother had decided to give it a wide berth after the unimpressive trailer and poor reviews. She decided to go see it after my recommendation and ended up liking it too.
IMO, "The Iron Lady" has suffered because it's not the movie people were expecting it to be. It's not a biopic. It's a movie about old age. It's about defeat, and the inevitability of defeat. And that inevitability is made more poignant because the person raging against the dying of the light is a woman famous for refusing to give in.
Put differently, this is a movie about a senile old woman who happens to be Margaret Thatcher. From a writer's perspective, I think their use of Thatcher is smart & justified: the iconic figure of the "iron lady" fits the story they are trying to tell. Problem is, the story they're telling isn't the one their audiences is expecting.
If you can accept the movie on its own terms, I think it's quite good. That's not to say it's your cup of tea, of course. And that's not to say that there isn't a really interesting Maggie Thatcher biopic waiting to be made. But I think it's a movie that will grow on critics when they rewatch it.
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Date: 2012-02-29 03:49 am (UTC)Eh. He can't be all that sad, given that he's dead. She's imagining him as present.
I heard many of the same complaints, though, and I think I was helped by my low expectations. For what it's worth, my mother had decided to give it a wide berth after the unimpressive trailer and poor reviews. She decided to go see it after my recommendation and ended up liking it too.
IMO, "The Iron Lady" has suffered because it's not the movie people were expecting it to be. It's not a biopic. It's a movie about old age. It's about defeat, and the inevitability of defeat. And that inevitability is made more poignant because the person raging against the dying of the light is a woman famous for refusing to give in.
Put differently, this is a movie about a senile old woman who happens to be Margaret Thatcher. From a writer's perspective, I think their use of Thatcher is smart & justified: the iconic figure of the "iron lady" fits the story they are trying to tell. Problem is, the story they're telling isn't the one their audiences is expecting.
If you can accept the movie on its own terms, I think it's quite good. That's not to say it's your cup of tea, of course. And that's not to say that there isn't a really interesting Maggie Thatcher biopic waiting to be made. But I think it's a movie that will grow on critics when they rewatch it.