Iron Lady

There is a scene in the film The Iron Lady

where the Conservative party spin doctors give Maggie Thatcher's budding Prime Minister a style make over in order to boost her popularity amongst the electorate and her party. What they should have employed even then, was a budding actress called Meryl Steep, for it is her performance in this story of Lady Thatcher's Journey through dementia, that gives the former Prime Minister, substance, heart, a certain likability and indeed soul.
She would have made a cracking style guru!

It is clearly one of Streep's best performances to date.

The story outlines Thatcher's twilight years, where the fading Maggie is virtually under house arrest with only the ghost of husband Denis ( a fabulous Jim Broadbent) for company. Through flashbacks, the increasing confused Thatcher surveys her political career from its early days in her Grantham Grocers shop to her resignation from number 10, and in between we touch upon the Miner's strike, The Falklands Conflict and even Thatcher's famous waltz with President Reagan

However, for me, those parts of the film proved to be far less interesting than the film's real message, and that is the heartbreaking and dreadfully moving story of a woman dealing with grief and coping with dementia, and it is in this portrayal that Streep is so good. She gives her character a cunning, guile, balancing out Thatcher's vagueness with flashes of clever confabulation and steely resolve. (The scene when Thatcher outwits her patronising psychiatrist  is a real stand out)....it is a lovely,intelligent and impressive Oscar worthy performance

8/10

Off to work tonight.....
BTW I have placed Rooster Cogburn   in his own run with ( of all hens ) Vinegar Tits, who has been a bit under the weather recently....... when I last checked on them both were sharing a bowl of corn! ( cue smiles all round)