Meryl Streep took to a specially-laid blue carpet for the European premiere of ‘The Iron Lady’, the biopic of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher which could win her an Oscar. Streep braved the drizzle to walk up the carpet, matching Thatcher’s trademark blue outfits and her Conservative party’s traditional colour, at the BFI Southbank in central London.
Her performance as the grocer’s daughter who changed the face of Britain has earned her a Golden Globe nomination, putting her in line to win the third Oscar of her career next month. While Streep’s acting has won acclaim, critics’ early reviews were mixed.
Times reviewer Kate Muir gave the film three stars out of five, calling it a “performance of great depth that is condemned to stay in the shallow end”.
Muir criticised the film’s “emphasis on feminism over politics” which left the Thatcher years “almost unrecognisable”. The staunchly-Conservative Daily Mail awarded only two stars, running the headline: “An Oscar prospect, yes. But a great film? No! No! No!”, echoing one of Thatcher’s most famous speeches.
Streep downplayed the talk of another Academy Award, focusing instead on the challenge of playing the former British premier from the start of her political career to an old age troubled by dementia.
Film critics have pointed to Streep’s bouffant hair and clothes in the role as near-perfect, and the distinctive voice which Thatcher worked so hard to perfect booms throughout the film. Streep confessed she knew little about Thatcher’’s policies before accepting the role but defended the decision to make a film about a woman who remains a divisive figure in Britain.
“That was part of what made it interesting, because people tended to look at her either as the saviour or the destroyer of the UK,” she said at the premiere. Director Phyllida Lloyd Lloyd revealed that Thatcher’s family had turned down an invitation to a public screening of the film. “We did make contact with the family some time ago to tell them what we were trying to do but they perhaps quite understandably have sort of stepped back from the whole thing.
“I can quite understand them not wanting to see it in the public gaze so we are not actually sure whether they have seen it or not,” she said.
