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FLICKS: The Iron Lady and The Conquest

Posted on 09 February 2012 by LeslieM

By Dave Montalbano

AdventuresOfCinemaDave.com

It is almost a year since Navy Seal Team 6 killed terrorist Osama bin Laden. Rival studios plan to produce a film about the Seal Team 6 mission, with release dates projected to be around election day in November. It is nothing new for Hollywood to release films promoting Democratic leaders (The Contender in 2000, Fahrenheit 9/11, in 2004, W in 2008) at the expense of Republican leadership.

With the exception of W and John F. Kennedy’s heroics in PT 109, most politic biopics like The Iron Lady are produced after the political leader is out of power.

From the leadership of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan, the world became a better place 30 years ago. Given current affairs, young people today should review this conservative lesson from recent history. When Thatcher proposes politically unpopular choices in budget cuts, she is vilified. Sound familiar?

Sadly, The Iron Lady is a flick that fears teaching a history lesson regarding Thatcher. While Meryl Streep is picture perfect as the title character, the perception of The Iron Lady is from a screenplay suffering from dementia. The framing story involves the widow Thatcher and her delusional conversations with her late husband, Denis (Jim Broad-bent, who seems to be recreating his Oscar-winning role from Iris, a better drama about celebrity dementia).

For the next 105 minutes, the film becomes unstuck in time; we see young Margaret as storekeeper’s daughter, followed by various scenes of Mrs. Thatcher arguing in the House of Commons. These individual scenes vary in quality of short storytelling. Streep gives a great performance, but The Iron Lady deserved better.

The Conquest deals with current Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and the rise of conservatism in France. Politically, Sarkozy (Denis Podalydès) brings a fresh perspective to the bureaucratic decay of the French political system. Personally, Sarkozy does not know if his wife will be with him on election night. This film succeeds in presenting the double-headed dragon of public and private life.

It opens with the disclaimer that “this is a work of fiction based on public records.” Thus, the ticket buyer becomes the jury and the movie producers – the attorney. With one side of the story being presented in biopics like The Conquest and The Iron Maiden, one wonders if there will be time for rebuttal in the movies.

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