When the film begins, it's a little confusing. Since Margaret Thatcher has been suffering in real life from dementia is recent years, her muddled thoughts are mirrored in the film. For example, some of the scenes with her husband take place AFTER his death--as she didn't always realize he was not there. It's all quite sad and is probably NOT the way many want to remember this great lady. However, there is nothing evil about aging and memory problems--and I applaud the film for its unflinching view of a severely debilitated woman--but why spend so much of the film on this? It was THE theme of the movie--more so than her political life. It also made the film VERY confusing and difficult to follow--and the sequence is quite jarring. In hindsight, I would have preferred a more traditional narrative and I assume most others would agree--especially since too much of the film is about her jumbled mind today and not her many achievements. It also might have been best that such a pathetic sort of persona had come out well after Thatcher's death--it seemed rather sad to do a film like this now. I would have simply ended the film after she stepped down as Prime Minister.

Despite this well deserved criticism, it's still a film I recommend. Although the writing could have been better, the acting and makeup couldn't. Meryl Streep rightfully earned the Oscar for Best Actress for this one--perhaps her best performance to date. To put it succinctly, she WAS Margaret Thatcher! And, to make this illusion even more real, the makeup was perfect--aging her in a manner that made you truly believe what you were seeing.

Margaret Thatcher was a fascinating if controversial woman, who has garnered strong opinions on either side. 'The Iron Lady' also boasted quite a cast, with the likes of Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent, what could go wrong?

The answer is, a lot did. 'The Iron Lady' is not complete dreck, but it could have been much, much better and doesn't do justice to Thatcher at all. The best thing about it is the acting, with the star of the film undoubtedly being the miraculous central performance of Meryl Streep as Thatcher. This is not a caricature or an impersonation, this performance feels genuine and real, showing that Streep did her homework researching Thatcher and her mannerisms.

Jim Broadbent brings heart and warmth to the ghostly Dennis, in lesser hands this could have been a gimmick but Streep and Broadbent's chemistry is quite heartfelt and really tries to bring believability to scenes not deserving of that effort. Alexandra Roach is also solid as is an unrecognisable Olivia Coleman. Other than the acting, the make-up is extremely good with the actors very believably made up, the locations and costumes are suitably evocative and there is the odd intriguing scene that are too far and between.

It is such a shame that the rest of 'The Iron Lady' falls flat. The supporting/secondary roles consist of spot and recognise the actor but the roles are too sketchily developed and under-utilised to make a proper impression. Phyllida Lloyd's talents as a theatre director don't translate here, here her direction is elephantine and the film is often haphazardly filmed and chaotically edited, especially the flashbacks. Thomas Newman's score is not among his best work, it's not awful certainly but it's more dreary than hypnotic and too derivative of other and better scores of his. The use of Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto is moving though.

Narratively, the story is unfocused and chaotic. There is too much focus on the older Thatcher suffering from dementia, and the scenes which dominate the film are incredibly dull and repetitive, there was little interesting about them, they seemed to exploit this awful condition with little sympathy for it rather than make Thatcher interesting and says little about her as a person and it was very difficult to not tire of the film early on. Much more interesting events, especially what Thatcher was famous for and conflicts of the time, are either mentioned but glossed over, introduced but quickly given short shrift or omitted entirely. In the end, hardly anything is learnt about Thatcher as a person or what made her famous or important and we don't really care at the end of the day.

Similarly, the script is also very sketchy and stilted with too much focus on the wrong things and more interesting elements severely underdeveloped or out of sight. It also seemed too careful not to offend, while it can be appreciated that the film didn't want to make Thatcher an angel or a villain or be one-sided it just felt like things were played too safe and like the writer Abi Morgan couldn't decide what her opinion on Thatcher was. She was a controversial figure certainly, but there was room for a complex characterisation and while Streep's performance is without complaint and that didn't really come.

Overall, a pretty weak film saved by the acting, Streep is the star here and issues about her winning the Oscar are none. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Even today though she's been out as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for over 20 years now the name of Margaret Thatcher still rings with controversy over the decisions she made in her tenure. Like that monarch of England whose reign ended over 400 years ago, she took the responsibility of her country as serious as Elizabeth I and nothing else stood in her way.

Margaret Thatcher as a first minister rather than a monarch did not have to deal with sex because she had to provide for an heir. Elizabeth had many male favorites over the years, but no one single individual to provide the support and backing that Dennis Thatcher gave to his spouse.

The Iron Lady is the story of a marriage only in this marriage it was behind every successful woman there is a good man. The film is a look at Margaret Thatcher in her dotage as the British would say as she's trying to adjust to the death of her beloved Dennis. During the course of the movie we see flashbacks to some of the tumultuous times during her ministry. Thatcher has the distinction of being both the longest reigning prime minister of the 20th century and the only woman for her country. In fact you have to go back to William Pitt the Younger and Robert Walpole to find longer reigns.

When I did a review of the first Thin Man movie for which William Powell got his first Oscar nomination I said it was unjust to nominate him without Myrna Loy. That's true here as Meryl Streep won her third Oscar playing Thatcher, nay investing herself in the soul of Thatcher she's that good in the part. Like The Thin Man this is a joint performance and Jim Broadbent should have gotten Oscar recognition himself as the supportive and self effacing Dennis Thatcher.

In fact if The Iron Lady has a weakness it's in the lack of any other characters being developed. The rest of the cast are just cardboard cutouts supporting Streep and Broadbent.

Still Margaret Thatcher if she has not totally slipped off into the good night of Alzheimer's Disease, she ought to be proud of this film tribute to her.