One was very, very good. It was about an elderly lady coming to terms with the death of her husband, who died almost a decade ago. She's suffering from dementia, and keeps seeing him there, talking to her, reminding her of the life they used to live and all the things they've done. Her relatives and friends try, but they can't persuade her to let go. Eventually, we are left to watch as he walks out of her memory, forever. I will admit, I even shed a tear or two.
The other film was a highly dramatised biopic, which portrayed the rise of a senior politician. Being a provincial woman with strong opinions, in a political party dominated by upper class males, who believe in not rocking the boat, she has to force her way to the top, proving hugely successful along the way. But in the end, those men get her and drive her from office.
Yes, I went to see the Iron Lady.
Now, I'm no film reviewer (I leave that in the much more capable hands of http://wouldtherealorsonwellespleasestandup.blogspot.com/). Neither do I have any personal axe to grind against Mrs Thatcher; while I was born under her, within four months she had been removed from office. But as a history student, I'm going to stick my two pennies worth in anyway...
My first thought was how much was left out. Obviously to fit in an active political career which spanned five decades would require quite a lot of editing, and I'm not sure it would have been quite as big a film had it focused on Thatcher the Parliamentary Undersecretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. But it still felt rushed, and came dangerously close to being a piece of hero worship. Her whole time as Education Secretary under Edward Heath was condensed into two scenes, one where she was being savaged at the despatch box, and one where she was vainly trying to persuade Ted Heath in Cabinet to make a stand against the miners. Given at the time she bought into the whole Heath agenda, to the point of being the first minister to thank him at the meeting after the February 1974 election, this seems to be a gross distortion of the facts. But then again, it doesn't fit the image of 'woman fighting in a man's world', so presumably got ditched.
Also quietly left out was the fact that she sort of won the Conservative Party leadership in 1975 by accident. Had Aiery Neave not gone round all the Tory backbenchers and persuaded them she represented the ultimate protest vote, she would never have managed to unseat Heath and then see off Willie Whitelaw. Neave's role was also altered. He became the Only Man Who Believed In Her; presumably in this universe, he didn't offer to back Whitelaw and Sir Keith Joseph before, almost in despair, settling on Thatcher.
Bizarrely, the part I did most agree with was the depiction of her early premiership. The film did a good job of showing just how unpopular she was prior to the Falkland's War, and the deep, deep social unrest that mass unemployment and large scale industrial demanning caused. Also very well done was the panic this inspired amongst her Cabinet, with arch enemy Michael Heseltine being played brilliantly by Richard E. Grant.
However, next thing we know, Sir Geoffrey Howe is resigning in protest at her treatment of him, and the Cabinet are conspiring to bring her down. Hang on... what happened to the glory years of Thatcherism? Arguably, between 1983 and 1988 was when she was at the height of her political power. Year by year, policy by policy, the Britain of today was forged. The trades unions were battered into submission, the nationalised industries were sold off, the economy grew, the City of London became the capital of world finance, the threat from the USSR was slowly neutralised. Labour and the Alliance were too busy fighting for second place to even begin to damage her, and the only threat to her leadership, the Westland Affair, saw the resignation of Heseltine, not her. Apparently this didn't fit the plot of 'woman fighting in a man's world' either. The few bits they did show contained the reunification of Germany and her dancing with Nelson Mandela. Given she wholeheartedly opposed one Germany and long condemned Mandela as a convicted terrorist, these were perhaps not the best scenes to include.
So, back to November 1990. Ignored was the total ineffectiveness of her campaign to remain leader, ignored was the degree to which many of her Cabinet thought she had finally lost the plot, ignored was her slump in popularity in the country over the poll tax fiasco. It's still all about 'woman fighting in a man's world'. Heseltine reappears from nowhere, and we are made to hate him. We are also made to hate the Cabinet, a cabal of men conspiring to bring down the grocer's daughter. She accuses them of trying to save their own seats at the next election. As if, in politics, that was a bad thing? But maybe it had to be this way. Chris Patten, her Environment Secretary in 1990, later said the manner of her removal from office created the myth of the Lady Betrayed, and it would have been better to wait for the electorate to remove her in 1991 or 1992. Having seen this film, I now realise exactly what he meant.
I realise this has turned into a cross between a rant and a history lesson. Perhaps unsurprisingly, coming from me! But the film did cross the fine line between biopic and hero worship. For a figure who, twenty two years after she left office, continues to inspire and infuriate in equal measure, this was always going to be a hard nut to crack. But for me, it fell too easily into a Hollywood stereotype of struggle against adversity, whereas it could have been much, much more.
But perhaps there was an element of criticism, hidden away in the opening scene. Mrs Thatcher has slipped past her security guards and has gone to the corner shop to buy a pint of milk, where she can't believe how much it costs. Surely, that scene was written by someone with a long memory?
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