A Tour de Force

To escape from the hammering, drilling and banging in my house as the builders progress – and most importantly to keep warm (we are without heating at the moment as the plumber fits us a new central heating boiler) - Pat and I went to the cinema this afternoon. We are not regular cinema goers, although Pat would, I know, like to go more frequently so it usually has to be something rather special to attract us.

Of course, these days it’s not like going to the real cinema, with a pretty usherette in a smart uniform (and short skirt!), torch and tray of ice creams. You don’t usually have to queue in the cold outside until the show begins, there’s no Pathe or Movietone News and no “B” movie to excite you. But there you go – it’s progress, they tell me! No, we entered a vast reception area with popcorn stalls McDonalds and numerous other refreshment outlets. You buy a ticket and there are what appear to be dozens of films on at the same time – all in separate cinemas. So we paid our £5.60 each (senior citizen concession), Pat clutched her huge  bag of popcorn (who could eat the stuff?) which  a young man in a baseball cap had  ladled into  a cavernous paper bag.  and we went to the directed area to see “The Iron lady” – the Thatcher film starring Meryl Streep. When we walked in  we were, for a few minutes, the only two sitting there.   Would we view completely alone? But no, as 2 pm approached it slowly filled up – almost universally with senior citizens. I have to confess, when  a couple of younger cinema goers (and by that I mean perhaps 25 year olds) I felt like shouting out “Hey – it’s the middle of the afternoon, shouldn’t you two be at work earning money and paying your  taxes to keep me in my retirement.” You’ll be pleased to know that I didn’t! The audience, as I said, was overwhelmingly retired people – where they all Thatcher fans I mused or where they like me, Thatcher haters anxious to see the old bird sink into dementia.

Meryl Streep & the real thing!

Whatever,  once the film began I was immediately captivated. I have to confess I am a Meryl Streep junkie. From the day I first saw her in “The Deerhunter” and through all the other great roles she has played she has been my absolute favourite – both as an actress and a person. For me all the other Hollywood actresses – whether they be American or British – pale into total insignificance. Oh, how I would love to see Ms Streep take on one of the great Shakespearian roles – perhaps on the Stratford stage! What a treat that would be.

But my idolising of Ms Streep apart this is a real tour de force. By anyone’s standards she is magnificent. I am told that she is in the running for an Oscar – well, that’s as maybe – but I suspect that long after the Oscars have come and gone this portrayal will be remembered as definitive. The accent, the gestures, the patronising voice, the overt stubbornness, the body language, the use of the eyes – I could go on – it is all there. It was almost like Margaret Thatcher was again moving amongst us.

But this was more than mere mimicry. For me the success of Streep’s interpretation was that she evoked in me (and I suspect in others) all the old feelings about Thatcher and the times in which she was Prime Minister.  And – and this is, I believe, is important – the film as a whole and Streep’s acting  provided a window into the hearts and minds of great politicians. The sense of destiny, the loneliness of the job, the notion that “the buck stops here” – and by half way through the film I was not hating Thatcher (as I have done for since the late 70s)  but respecting her.

Now that respect might be shallow – an emotional trick brought on by a good script and fine acting. Perhaps Thatcher was indeed the evil woman I have always thought and Meryl Streep has simply given us all  a sentimental view of an old lady looking back on her life. But I don’t think so. When Margaret Thatcher left front line politics two decades ago no one cheered more loudly than I. But, even then I had a grudging respect – whatever one thought of her, she was the consummate politician, she was a person of substance, she was clear in her views, she was stubborn, her commitment to her causes was quite unquestioned. In an age of mediocrity she stood out. And without question she changed the political landscape of both this country and the wider world. And that, for me is the strength of Meryl Streep’s portrayal of the “Iron Lady” – that is what comes over.

There has been some political criticism in this country of the film.  Douglas Hurd, Thatcher’s Foreign Secretary, in the “New Statesman” a week or  so ago praised the political accuracy of the film and Streep’s  portrayal of Thatcher but questioned the “rightness” of portraying  Thatcher sinking into dementia  whilst she was still alive. I have a certain sympathy with this. The portrayal was brilliantly achieved, but in a sense I got the feeling that it was a bit of creative writing. I’m not aware of who might know what goes on inside Mrs Thatcher’s old mind and to portray it as fact seems a bit of poetic licence. And certainly, I was a little uneasy of this portrayal whilst the woman was still alive.

Having seen the film, whilst I have this sympathy for those who suggest portraying the living Thatcher sinking into dementia is not appropriate, I have to say that for me this is one of the real strengths of the film and of Streep's performance. Forget this is Margaret Thatcher - Streep's portrayal of a frail, confused old lady is truly masterful - again, the eyes and the confusion that lies behind them, the body language, the flashes of the woman that she once was - are all, for me, utterly convincing. This really is an actress on the top of her game made even more resonant because we all know the woman the she is portraying - it is not some long dead personality of whom we only have faded black and white pictures or old memories.  

The wonderful Ms Streep!

We have talk in this country about giving Margaret Thatcher a state funeral when she eventually bows out. No one would shout louder than I against that idea. Indeed, I suspect that Thatcher herself would be the last person to want it. It is perhaps a measure of  her political descendents – Major, Brown Cameron, Blair etc – political midgets all - that this shallow idea should be suggested. No, whatever one’s views on Mrs Torture (as I love to refer to her) she was a great woman and politician.  She was about more than the mawkish extravaganza of a state funeral. She did  not engender universal love and appeal in her years in power – she fostered love and hatred in equal measure and to  arrange a state funeral as a way of saying “thank you” is I believe totally inappropriate. But, she deserves her great place in the political history of the nation and Meryl Streep’s portrayal goes a long, long way to cementing that in place.