Released in The King's Speech slot, The Iron Lady is a surprisingly melancholy and brutal look at the cruelty and loneliness of old age, and the fact that it focuses on the life of Margaret Thatcher serves simply to juxtapose onset senility with the life story of the woman who became one of the most powerful people in the world at her peak. It is uncomfortable to watch the frail elderly character portrayed this sadly in her own lifetime, yet this is probably the best part of Meryl Streep's truly remarkable performance, giving the currently aged ex-Prime Minister a sense of dignity, warmth and despair that evokes sympathy rather than pity. The film is stuffed with great British character-actor performances, notably Jim Broadbent and Harry Lloyd as the older and younger incarnations of Denis Thatcher, and the broad historical canvas of the second half of the twentieth century is effectively re-created. The writing is occasionally naive, but the constantly shifting time-structure is interesting and Lloyd handles her actors and overall direction much better than seen in Mamma Mia! Forget the politics - The Iron Lady is a remarkably-played look at the life of a singular woman from the optimism of youth to the sadness of her twilight years.
