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6 February 2012

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Cinema Reviews

CINEMA: MERYL STREEP AS MARGARET THATCHER

The Iron Lady

Director: Phyllida Lloyd.
Writer: Abi Morgan (screenplay).
Stars: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent and Richard E Grant.

The Iron Lady (12A) – 105 minutes

Review By Cathy Power

THE IRON LADY is a sugar-coated account of some of the life of Margaret Thatcher (played by Meryl Streep), one of the most hated and hateful individuals that Britain has had the misfortune to have had as prime minister, serving from 1979 until 1990.
This is not a historical account of Thatcherism and its effects on Britain, let alone Ireland. It is a soft-focus look at a once-powerful woman descending into dementia. Having made the point that she lives comfortably, surrounded by caring staff, visited by her daughter and not so often by her son, we find that Mrs Thatcher speaks to her dead husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent), who is conjured up by her imagination on a daily basis.
She is clearing out his wardrobe, at last, since he has been dead for eight years and so remembering her career and her relationship with him. Feisty Margaret, the grocer’s daughter from the north London suburb of Finchley, is depicted fighting sexism, snobbery and class bias bravely to become Britain’s only woman prime minister.
Okay, Meryl Streep is a great actress: she becomes her character (unlike actors like Jack Nicholson who is always Jack Nicholson) and this is a great impersonation of Margaret Thatcher. Streep has already won a Golden Globe for the role and she’s been nominated in the Best Actress category of the Oscars.
I didn’t go to the film expecting to be informed or to enjoy it but I have to admit to being disappointed that there was no attempt at all to assess Thatcherism politically. Profoundly important matters: the H-Blocks Hunger Strikes, the miners’ strike, the poll tax, her near-destruction of the trade union movement, the welfare state, rampant privatisation and deregulation, unemployment reaching 3.6million under her rule, even the war in the Malvinas, are briefly and superficially portrayed all from Thatcher’s perspective. The Hunger Strikes are dealt with in a ten-second shot of a demonstration and a voiceover.
Don’t bother going to see this film unless your blood pressure is dangerously low or your adrenaline function is impaired and in need of a boost.

 

CINEMA: LEONARDO DICAPRIO AS FEARED FOUNDER OF THE FBI, J EDGAR HOOVER

J Edgar

Director: Clint Eastwood.

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas, Lea Thompson, Ed Westwick, Armie Hammer, Dermot Mulroney, Judi Dench.

J Edgar (15A) – 136 minutes

Review by John Hedges

LIKE The Iron Lady, this biopic of FBI godfather J Edgar Hoover has been given the big movie treatment with a big-name star, and it’s a big disappointment.
Born in 1895, John Edgar Hoover joined the US Department of Justice during the First World War and in 1924 became the first director of the Bureau of Investigation (the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935). It was a position of incredible power he kept a ruthless grip on until he died in 1972, feared to the end by all, including US presidents.
In the 1920s, he was an innovator, establishing the first centralised fingerprint records and developing the use of forensic science in crime scene investigation. He ordered the collation of detailed FBI files on ‘radicals’, starting with a massive card index of 450,000 people with left-wing views. This was supplemented by his private store of blackmail material to be used against officials, critics and even US presidents and their families. No one was safe from his spying eyes. (The opening scenes of Hoover personally cutting out newspaper articles about Martin Luther King, brought back memories of Irish Labour Party Minister Conor Cruise O’Brien doing just the same in Dublin during the 1970s and Section 31 state censorship.)
Director Clint Eastwood uses the well-worn device of a figure dictating their memoirs to look back at their journey to where they are, giving him the chance to interchange episodes from the psychotic Hoover’s modern-day skulduggery back to the story of his rise, including his home life with his mentally-incapacitated father and domineering mother.
Throughout his life, Hoover is seen tortured by his own sexuality and his tempestuous relationship with suave and handsome FBI Assistant Director Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), his constant companion who inherited Hoover’s estate and is buried close to him in the Congressional Cemetery.
This is a movie visually good to look at but, at over two hours, it’s too long a drag kept alive largely by DiCaprio’s performance as Hoover. The star was tipped for but missed out on an Oscar nomination for Best Actor; sadly, I wouldn’t miss out on two hours plus on going to see J Edgar.

 

 

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