The Iron Lady

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

The title of this film, The Iron Lady, suggests a person of strength, but it also can convey inflexibility. In the end, because of the dementia English Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher developed, the movie shows how even the sturdiest of persons can be undermined. Actress Meryl Streep and the director, Phyllida Lloyd, stated that they wanted to examine the gender theme of a woman taking on the men’s club environment during the politics of the 1970’s. 

Over the credits we hear cheering, which fades as we encounter the older Thatcher (Meryl Streep, in a Best Actress Oscar-winning role) in decline shopping in a grocery store buying milk. She hesitates as she considers which carton to choose, reflecting indecision, which was not part of her personality in her prime. A man rudely steps in front of her as she heads toward the cashier, showing how even after all she has accomplished, she is dismissed as a woman. At the counter, she notices a newspaper headline which reports terrorist bombings. Despite her condition, she is still concerned about her country’s affairs. 

She walks slowly on the street as cars zip by her in contrast, demonstrating that she is out of sync with how quickly things are changing. It appears that her husband Denis (Jim Broadbent) and she are eating breakfast, and she is concerned about his diet, cutting himself while shaving, and walking outside without a scarf. She complains of the cost of milk, showing her attention to everyday expenses. Her husband says they will have to economize, and jokes about having to take in renters, which demonstrates this ex-prime minister is not among the elite rich. 

The next shot however shows her husband’s chair is empty, and Thatcher overhears conversation that addresses how others are worried about how she left the house. The problem with her state of mind is now evident. She is cleaning out the deceased Denis’s clothes as he reappears and disappears which allows the audience to experience Thatcher’s lack of connection to reality. Her assistant, Susie (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), talks about signing her books and other events. When Susie mentions a concert of Rodgers and Hammerstein music, Thatcher’s mind wanders to when she and her husband saw The King and I. The camera focuses on the Playbill booklet and we again are in her mind. The musical deals with a woman having to navigate a patriarchal society, which mirrors Thatcher’s own life.

Thatcher signs copies of her book, but on one she uses her maiden name, because she flashes back to when her family endured German attacks during WWII. The young Margaret (Alexandra Roach) worked in her father’s small store. Alfred Roberts (Iain Glen) was a community leader and is shown giving a speech about the importance of small businesses, and the need for people to help each other, but not in the form of “handouts.” Here we see Thatcher’s conservative roots which emphasized not relying on the government but instead on individual citizens taking the responsibility of solving problems. Even though she became an example of a woman succeeding in a man’s world, it was her father who urged her to not join others, but to go her own way. Young women walk by the family shop and she hears voices commenting derisively how Margaret doesn’t have time for their pursuits because she just works and studies. We do see her look a bit longingly at the girls’ fashionable shoes. But her scholastic work is rewarded as she receives a telegram notifying her of her acceptance into Oxford University. Her father puts pressure on her by telling Margaret, “Don’t let me down,” instead of offering congratulations. Her mother, Beatrice (Emma Dewhurst), washing dishes in the kitchen, doesn’t accept the telegram with her wet hands, implying she is cut off by her adherence to domestic chores from celebrating her daughter’s emancipation from traditional female activities, and she seems unsure as to how to deal with her daughter’s path.

Thatcher continues to time shift, and in her mind we see Denis as a jokester, striking dramatic poses, or wrapping his head in a scarf, offsetting her proper behavior. She shows disapproval as he calls her the “boss lady.” The fact that the person in charge must be qualified by gender shows that a woman as a leader is an exception to the masculine rule. Her daughter, Carol (Olivia Colman), shows up, but Thatcher has forgotten that they were to clear out closets containing Denis’s clothing, as Thatcher has taken years to even consider letting go of the past. The TV news shows an IRA bombing of the location where the British Conservative Party was holding a conference, and Thatcher’s face reveals her worry for what is happening to her nation. Forgetting she no longer heads the government, but showing her attachment and loyalty to her fellow citizens, she says that they must release a statement offering condolences to the families of victims and stating they must never give in to terrorists.

At one point in her conversation with Carol, Thatcher envisions Denis doing a crossword puzzle. He gets her to guess the word “obstinate,” which shows an unconscious admission of one of her character flaws as she refuses advice from her daughter about not wandering off on her own because of her mental state. As Carol helps her remember who will be present at her dinner party, Thatcher notes that she always preferred the company of men, possibly because of her ties to her father, but also maybe because she identified more with men in power than women who allowed themselves to be subservient. 

Thatcher flashes back to an earlier dinner where she discussed running for office as a young woman. She confirms her father was also involved in politics, being mayor of his town. One condescending man notes her commoner background of working in a grocery store could possibly be a basis for being a politician, but she scores a debating point by saying working in the family business helped, but “getting a degree from Oxford,” added to her qualifications. She impresses her future husband, Denis, (Harry Lloyd), who is at this gathering. At the party in the present Thatcher shows her more masculine tendencies by asking for whiskey as opposed to the tamer champagne. She displays her conservative beliefs at a young age as she places responsibility on individuals instead of the state. She says, at the earlier dinner, a person should be “encouraged to stand on his own two feet.” She agrees that some people need help, “but for those that can do, they must just get up and do.” She argues that she knows what it’s like to live on a limited income, and her life in her small town, thus, can translate to others. After that earlier meal, the men go in their group and she is told that she should join the women. This segregation of the sexes during socializing is stressed in other films, such as Titanic and Streep’s later movie, The Post. At the dinner in the present, Thatcher shows her ability to speak intelligently about the acts of present-day terrorists who now involve the innocent in their attacks. 

After the current party, a young woman notes that she heard the former prime minister speak at the very hotel years ago that was bombed the day of the dinner party, which illustrates why Thatcher is especially impacted by the act of terrorism. The woman says that Thatcher was a great inspiration for women like her. Instead of being flattered by the compliment, Thatcher points out the shift from the emphasis on duty to personal interests when she says, “Well, it used to be about trying to do something. You see. Now, it’s about trying to be someone.” Thatcher seems to be prescient about the current desire to gain personal attention via social media, and the cult of personality that has engulfed the modern world. 

After that insightful remark, Thatcher then relapses, asking Carol to send up her husband, again associating herself with the male view, to see what he thinks about Carol’s urging her mother to see the doctor sooner than scheduled. But, Carol is divorced, and her husband is now living in South Africa with another woman. Carol reluctantly feels she must remind her mother that she is no longer Prime Minister, and that Denis is dead. Thatcher avoids these painful facts by saying Carol needs to go home and get some rest.

After Margaret lost her first bid to gain an elected office, Denis, playful as always, encourages her since she did very well in the voting. He tells her that her being single and a grocer’s daughter works against her, but if she marries a successful small businessman, such as himself, her chances of holding office will vastly improve. He is being humorous, but his proposal is sincere. She says yes, but warns him that she will not be a traditional female spouse, and never be someone “who stays silent and pretty on the arm of her husband.” She says she will not be someone who is confined to domestic chores, such as washing up in the kitchen, which refers back to her mother when Margaret received her admission letter to Oxford. She declares, stating what she would later tell the young woman at the party, that life is doing something, and “one’s life must matter” beyond being a domestic worker. She tells Denis, “I cannot die washing up a teacup.” Whether one agrees with her politics or not, the film suggests that Thatcher is among those people who live a meaningful life because they possess the elements of drive and passion. Denis, being an evolved young male, says it is because Margaret will not play the role of a traditional wife is why he wants to marry her. 

While looking at a recording of herself with her husband at the beach when their children were young, Denis appears saying it was not like her to look into the past, suggesting Thatcher currently needs reminders of what happened in her life due to her illness. He advises against such activity since he says, “you don’t know what you might find.” He is probably saying that we submerge hurtful memories to protect us as we get older. He says she can rewind the recording, but she can’t “change it.” As much as one would want to alter what has happened, it is done, and the life we choose is what we must live with. Thatcher’s mixing the present with the past can be seen as she thinks she sees her children running through the house as we hear that she won her election to Parliament. But becoming a public figure has its cost, as is implied by the shot of her children running after Margaret and calling to her as she drives away from the house toward her new job.

Now older, it is 1974 and Thatcher is the Education Secretary in Parliament. The director said she used careening camera shots to stress the “bear pit” battles in Parliament and to suggest fighters banging into each other while battling in a boxing ring. Margaret makes an argument in that body against the teachers’ union, saying the workers are fiscally irresponsible, asking too much money and infringing on the availability of other necessities of educational institutions, such as heating and lighting. Opposition male members use sexist remarks saying she is “screeching” and should “calm down.” She wittily replies that the men should listen to what she is saying, not how, and will thus be educated. There are energy cutbacks due to labor strikes. The sanitation dispute has left mountains of odorous trash that Margaret smells as she walks through the streets. Some feel the unions are crippling the country while others blame the conservative government actions that Margaret backs. At a meeting of party leaders, the consensus is that the Conservative Party must not be seen as aggravating the current worker crisis. However, because she is a woman, Margaret is almost ignored by Prime Minister Heath ((John Sessions) until she is finally allowed to speak. She is more combative than the men, saying it is no time to be “conciliatory” since the labor force is calling on the military to join them, which is most likely an intolerable situation for Margaret.

We again see how her father shaped Margaret’s views. She remembers her father saying that hard workers like the shopkeepers make England strong. He is pragmatic when he also says that the Conservatives want to give people the opportunity to achieve their best, but not everyone is equal in potential, and thus all can’t succeed to the same extent. He seeks to nurture children to be the leaders of the future, and that wish comes true very close to home for him. As Margaret in 1974 teaches daughter Carol to drive, her words reveal her attitudes about others. She tells Carol to realize that other drivers are either “reckless” or “inept,” and probably both. She adds, “One must be brave if one is to take the wheel.” Her remarks are a metaphor for what she feels is needed to be a leader. She confirms this need for courage when she arrives home and announces to Denis that she wants to head her political party. She tells him that the men in her party don’t have the “guts” to say what needs to be said. When he proposed marriage, Denis said he wanted to be married to Margaret because she didn’t want to be an average housewife. But now he disagrees with her and says she is acting out of ambition, not duty, as she claims. He is challenging her primary motivation surrounding her belief that public service is meant to benefit others, not oneself. In his reversed attitude, he believes she is ignoring the family’s needs. 

In an interview, Margaret says that America thrives, unlike European countries, because the United States is attached to its philosophy which stresses a belief in future progress. She says England is mired by history, consumed by what was. She feels that the British can learn from the Americans. The men who back her, Heseltine (Richard E. Grant) and Airey Neave (Nicholas Farrell), still have sexist ideas about promoting her which are based on physical display. They say she must lose the hats and her beloved pearls, given to her by her husband at the birth of their twins, which they say make her look like “a privileged Conservative wife.” They also don’t like her voice because it is “too high and it has no authority.” They then echo what the opposition Labor Parliament member said previously that she sounds like she is screeching, a stereotypical view of women by men. She says no matter what she has done, she is not able to fit in with the male dominated politics of the country. But they do find that a plus since she offers something refreshing, and they say they want to “maximize” her appeal. Airey, her eventual spokesperson on Northern Ireland, says that she can become Prime Minister. But, she is doubtful, saying that is not possible; she is only running to “shake up the party.” However, Airey tells her, “If you want to change this party, lead it,” and advises the same for the country. He admits that they are talking “surface” presentation, but he urges that she “Never be anything other than yourself,” which is what her father advocated.

Margaret puts herself in their hands, says she may relinquish the hat, but not the pearls, which shows her devotion to her family. She works at changing her elocution, and altering her hair style. She visits small industrial plants, saying that the growth of small businesses into larger ones is essential to the British economy. She is against the current unions which have changed, she says. She declares that a union no longer protects laborers anymore but instead “persecutes” them, and “stops them from working.” So her emphasis is on promoting the welfare of the employers first. She says that “it is time to put the ‘Great’ back in Great Britain.” Could Donald Trump have been influenced by that phrase when initiating the slogan of making America great again? 

After Airey compliments her in a parking lot, he drives off and his car explodes. The news says that the IRA took credit for blowing up his car, which ties in with the bombing noted when Thatcher is older at the beginning of the film. Possibly these continuing acts of violence may have weighed heavily on her throughout her life. Airey’s words of urging her to be a leader echo in her ears even as an older woman when she looks at his picture.

In the election of 1979, she states that the country must throw off the “shackles” of socialism, suggesting that government programs aimed at the less fortunate in society were preventing economic growth. The Conservatives win a majority of the vote and Margaret is the first woman to lead a democratic country in the West. The older Thatcher looks at the picture taken of her and the other Conservative leaders as she took over Number 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister. The illusion of Denis appears and she seems to want to dispel her current dependence on resurrecting the past to gain mental stability. She tells him that she did well without him before they met and can do so now. So she says to the apparition, “So will you please go away.” 

A doctor (Michael Maloney) examines her and Thatcher lies about not hallucinating, not wanting to expose any weaknesses, which is how she believes she succeeded in life. He notes that she must be feeling disoriented about the changes in her life. But, she tells him, as she told the young woman, that what is stressed has changed. Now, everything is about feelings, instead of thinking. She tells him that one of the problems of modern times is that those who govern are more concerned about feelings than “thoughts and ideas.” Could the movie through her statement be trying to connect to our time, where politics is more sound and fury instead of rational thought? She says it would be better to ask what she is thinking. She says thoughts eventually become actions which form one’s character and “destiny.” She concludes “What we think, we become.” Although quite lucid here as she wants to continue to have ideas dominate her makeup, her dementia is attacking what she holds most dear. 

At home, Thatcher continues to try to avoid her Denis appearances. He points out the problem with long-term and short-term memory contradictions, where she can remember whole passages of Kipling, but has trouble recalling the name of her housekeeper, June (Susan Brown). She tries to block out Denis’s words by turning on all the electrical appliances, saying to herself that if she can’t hear him, he isn’t there, and her worst fear of losing her mind and thus her intellect won’t be happening. She announces in alarm that she doesn’t recognize herself, which means what she identifies with, what anchors her, is failing, and feeling adrift is horrifying to her.

After switching on the television she hears the newscaster saying that supporters of Thatcher say she, along with Ronald Reagan, helped end the Cold War, and she turned Britain’s economy around. Opponents argued that she made “savage” spending cuts that created “sweeping privatization,” thus becoming the Prime Minister of the business sector. A voice-over speech from the past mocks her actions, saying she quoted St. Francis when entering office to urge bringing “faith, hope, and harmony” to England. But a flashback to when she was leader shows a representative in Parliament saying that during her tenure the country experienced the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression and lowest production of coal and steel since the 1930’s. There are protests about the rich getting richer while her promise of growing the middle class had not come to fruition. While she was leader, some Conservatives even worried about cutting government spending during a deep recession. Riots are shown, but Margaret says that the strong measures are required to bring economic health to the country. Meanwhile, IRA terrorist actions continued, with a bomb going off close to where Margaret was staying, wrecking her room, literally and symbolically mirroring the turbulent times.

While she was Prime Minister, the military dictatorship in Argentina captured the British Falkland Islands. Margaret wants them back and asks why were they left with no naval support. She is reminded that there were defense cuts in spending which she approved because the feeling was the risk in the South Atlantic were minimal. Her own fiscal austerity reducing military presence there “to an absolute minimum” backfired on her in this foreign policy matter. In this case, she tells the Lord President, Geoffrey Howe (Anthony Head), that the expense can’t be worried about now in getting the islands back. Some, including the American Secretary of State, urge diplomacy as the islands are far away and are of minor significance. She makes a good point when she tells Alexander Haig (Matthew Marsh) that the USA did not abandon Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was attacked. She states that principles are more important than practicality when one’s citizens are in danger. She refuses to be diplomatic and listen to the politicians who worry about England appearing as aggressors. Instead she sides with the military. She does not seek peace but victory since England did not initiate hostilities. She says she must write to all British families who lost soldiers in the war, which shows her compassion for those sacrifices. England does eventually prevail and wins back the islands and there is accompanied celebration back home. The politicians who advocated restraint now jump on the bandwagon, exalting Margaret’s victory. In Parliament, her patriotic fervor about being in the right, vanquishing the enemy, and being proud to be British silences the opposition party. 

With businesses doing well and the Berlin Wall coming down, Margaret’s popularity rises. But, she is inflexible in her stands concerning such things as taxes, where she believes the rich and poor should pay the same rate. She says that the poor must take responsibility for the privilege of living in England just like the wealthy. She seems impervious to the fact that the percentage a lower-class worker pays is much more punitive than that same rate imposed on the wealthy, and seems to argue that the well-to-do have earned the right to have less of their total income taxed. She resents “those slackers who take, take, take, and contribute nothing to the community.” Her stance implies that those who do not have the skill or drive of very successful achievers provide nothing to the country and should be punished for their lack of accomplishment. Her anger sounds less like patriotism and more like nationalism, which does not tolerate dissent, and is hostile toward foreign ways of doing things. 

On a personal note, Margaret is condescending toward other government officials. She berates her colleagues for not having the “courage” to fight for her policies and belittles them. She has contempt for those fellow politicians who are born into privilege and have not worked hard for their wealth, and then feel guilty about their status. She is insulting to Geoffrey while meeting with other government members, openly criticizing his first draft of a timetable, calling it sloppy, and declares his incompetence was due to his being “unwell.” 

There is footage of violent confrontations with protesters in reaction to Margaret’s severe fiscal policies. Geoffrey resigns out of frustration, and makes a speech in the House of Commons that shows his inability to tolerate Margaret’s “bullying.” Others in the Conservative Party believe Geoffrey was calling for someone to challenge Margaret for party leadership. Heseltine campaigns for party leadership. She is negligently egotistical in going to Paris to celebrate the end of the Cold War with other country executives instead of fighting for her position in the Conservative Party. She fails to win the requisite votes on a first-round tally to retain party leadership. 

There are shots of the elderly Thatcher inserting herself into earlier political battles. Her dementia tricks her into believing she is in a past conference meeting of Parliament members who criticize her and feel they can’t win another election with Margaret as their leader. She conducts a hallucinatory time travel argument saying that it is the people, not party members, who put her in office and they are the ones that can remove her. Her husband at this earlier time tells her to stand aside instead of going through what could be a humiliating battle. We see Prime Minister Thatcher sitting alone in Parliament as we hear speeches denouncing her coldness toward the plight of starving workers while others state the economy is better, which shows how in politics, both sides of an argument are made, irregardless of facts.

After running the country for eleven and a half years Margaret tenders her resignation. The elderly Thatcher, with her imaginary Denis, spew angry, derogatory remarks about those who forced her exit from office. The film alternates here between hostile internal thoughts in Margaret’s head with her voiced complaints to accentuate how her impaired mental state mixes external reality with her internal reverie. She is insightful when she says that making tough decisions in the present causes a loss of popularity but is worth it if long term success is achieved. She admits finally, maybe a little late, that her family’s happiness was important to her. 

She packs up Denis’s clothes in an attempt to purge herself of reliance on his presence. But, she then calls back his apparition; however, the other part of her has already sent him off as he walks away and says that she will be okay on her own. Carol wakes her sleeping mother up and sees that Thatcher has emptied the closets and bagged the clothes. Despite her decline, she still tries to stick to the independent part of her that drove her forward through life.

The next film is Stranger Than Fiction.