Iron lady who is that

And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny. What we think, we become. My father always said that. And I think I am fine. Sign In. Play trailer Biography Drama. Director Phyllida Lloyd. Abi Morgan screenplay. Top credits Director Phyllida Lloyd. See more at IMDbPro. Trailer International Teaser. Clip Featurette House of Commons. Promo TV Spot. Photos Top cast Edit.

Richard E. Grant Michael Heseltine as Michael Heseltine. Alice da Cunha Cleaner as Cleaner. Sylvestra Le Touzel Hostess as Hostess Michael Culkin Host as Host Amanda Root Amanda as Amanda. Phyllida Lloyd. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. Elderly and a virtual prisoner in her own home due to her concerned staff and daughter Carol, Margaret Thatcher , Britain's first woman prime minister, looks back on her life as she clears out her late husband Denis's clothes for the Oxfam shop.

Denis is seen as being her rock as she first enters parliament and then runs for the leadership of the Conservative Party, culminating in her eventual premiership. Now his ghost joins her to comment on her successes and failures, sometimes to her annoyance, generally to her comfort until ultimately, as the clothes are sent to the charity shop, Denis departs from Margaret's life forever.

Never compromise. Rated PG for some violent images and brief nudity. Did you know Edit. It was not a description that crossed anyone's mind when I first met her at some reception in the mids. She had survived the lampooned hats and the milk-snatching as education secretary to see off Ted Heath and his would-be successors to become Tory leader in In private, the old school, with their country houses and military crosses, were immensely condescending, telling each other not take her wilder utterances too seriously.

No 10 would tame her. In Lloyd's film they are seen to whisper a lot. It conveys the flavour of the time. Thatcher was already famous for passing instant judgments on people she met. I knew I was too young and long-haired, too tentative, too Guardian, to pass muster. On one occasion in the receiving line at No 10 more formal in those days she took my hand and yanked me past her with only a perfunctory hullo. Gordon Brown would have done it too, but lacked the nerve. As the paper's sketchwriter, I came to realise that I did have one advantage during our occasional exchanges.

In a small group or at a reception one could make a little joke. Those present would smile or even laugh. Not Mrs T. She didn't do jokes, which put her at a brief disadvantage and caused her to leave a trail of double entendres. So Lloyd and the writer, Abi Morgan, have generously credited her with too much humour, mostly in her dealings with her beloved Denis, whom Broadbent portrays as more of a knockabout character where did that Cockney come from?

Constantly scolded by the wife "too much butter, Denis" but still his own gin-drinking man, he was much smarter than Private Eye's "Dear Bill" column could admit, loyal and adoring but also sometimes exasperated.

Thus, when his wife allowed herself to be filmed with a baby calf on a Suffolk farm during the election campaign, Denis was heard to mutter: "If we're not careful we'll soon have a dead calf on our hands. Far from witnessing a fatal gaffe or calf-killing during the campaign, as Labour prayed, those of us on the campaign plane and bus only one train, she didn't like them soon realised she wouldn't put a foot wrong.

It was soft content-lite Thatcher on display, a succession of photo-ops, telly with the sound turned off — and she won. Only then did the fireworks start and only gradually. Lloyd's Iron Lady takes few serious liberties with narrative facts in a series of setpieces: strikes, the Falklands war and Irish bombs, little on Europe or the cold war, no Westland crisis or Kinnock.

Keep it simple for American audiences, and after all most of Thatcher's cabinet will be unknown to younger Brits. This film is only about one person. As such it exaggerates her resolution and inflexibility, as she did herself. Thatcher could be pragmatic, even indecisive, though we hacks rarely saw it.

She could also be kind. We didn't see much of that either. Nor did the miners, faltering cabinet colleagues or Carol whom she makes cry in the film without noticing. I can believe that. The script comes close to caricature, but then so did Thatcher. Streep's skill saves the day.

Is it a leftie assassination job? Or rightwing hagiography?