'The Iron Lady' review

Meryl Streep (Credit: Weinstein Co.)

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Whatever your feelings about former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, or her polarizing politics, you can't deny her trailblazing role as the first female political leader of a Western superpower. Meryl Streep brings to life the iconic stateswoman in this sweeping biopic, which traces Thatcher's meteoric rise from scrappy grocer's daughter to upstart Conservative candidate to global political powerhouse, as well as her eventual dotage marked by encroaching dementia.

The buzz: Meryl Streep. Margaret Thatcher. Foreign accent. Could you engineer a more obvious awards-baiting performance? Didn't think so! Pundits have pegged Streep as the actress to beat at this season's awards shows, and she's at the very least on track to nab her 17th Oscar nod, making her the most-nominated actor in Academy history. Ironically, it also makes her the biggest loser: Her last win was back in 1982—a Best Actress statuette for "Sophie's Choice"—and she subsequently racked up 14 consecutive losses.

The verdict: Streep is sensational, elevating her performance far above cop-out impersonation while deftly maneuvering the role's many hokey hazards: pearls, bouffant, pitchy voice. In fact, her work here recalls the same skillfulness she used in breathing rich life to another parody-ready figure: Julia Child in "Julie and Julia." In "The Iron Lady," she sculpts Thatcher with great craftsmanship, molding moments both grand (rousing speeches) and intimate (hallucinatory conversations with her dead husband, played by Jim Broadbent) with equal gravitas. The film itself, though, goes soft on the political doyenne—if you're looking for a critically observant picture of Thatcher, this isn't it. Director Phyllida Lloyd (who also directed Streep in 2008's "Mamma Mia!"), working from a script by Abi Morgan ("Shame"), shamelessly venerates Thatcher. In her eyes, the former prime minister is Joan of Arc with pearls and a pouf 'do, charging into war with "rah, rah, rah!" battlecries of overstated feminism, a freewheeling free-market agenda, and declamatory tenets like, "One must be brave when one is to take the wheel." On the soundtrack: anthemic strains that seem to demand you listen while kneeling with your head bowed down. All of this undermines the film's complex subject, and the actress channeling her. After all, when you've snagged Meryl Streep for your movie, why embellish and pad?

Did you know? A handful of British critics have been less than kind to the film, lambasting it for disrespectfully portraying Thatcher, who is still alive, with dementia. Others have denounced it for its sympathetic and lopsided take on Thatcher and her conservative politics.

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