“Putting Meryl’s performance aside – I’ve raved about it enough, plus it was only a pie, and there was no custard – you do not get any sense of Thatcher’s political coming of age. Why did she believe what she believed, and why so vehemently? Why go to war, for example, over an island no one in Britain cared about? You also get no sense of the human cost of her policies, how she disadvantaged the poor and took a hammer to the society she did not believe in.”
Deborah Ross, writing a review of the film, The Iron Lady (about Margaret Thatcher), page 88, The Spectator (behind the paywall). Here is the Spectator link for those who pay for the thing.
It is quite amusing, in a grim sort of way, to see how a writer such as Ms Ross is torn by her admiration for the film as a piece of moviemaking art and its sympathetic portrayal of Lady Thatcher, and her own leftist opinions concerning the alleged impact of this person on the United Kingdom (her remarks about the Falklands presumably indicate Ms Ross would have let the Argentine junta just take the Falklands, but she never tells us in the short space available).
As a free market liberal, I certainly do not revere this politician (the government share of GDP at the end of her time in office was barely different from at the start and some thumpingly bad domestic legislation, like the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, got passed), but it is nevertheless rather striking how certain film critics have had their heads messed by this film.
I am definitely going to see it. US-based movie reviewer Kyle Smith really liked it, and for the sort of reasons that, I suspect, upset Ms Ross.
I was wondering when this film was going to get a mention here!
One thing that always occurred to me when people were going on so much about Bush was that all the insults hurled at Bush Jr. sort of paled in comparison to what I remember people saying about Reagan. I guess the same is true of Thatcher in the UK, except that she was never really rehabilitated in the public image.
I’ve found the reviews refreshingly honest. Granted that critics should save their politics for their personal blogs, if they’re going to let politics interfere with their ability to review a film objectively, it’s better to come out and admit it.
“Why go to war, for example, over an island no one in Britain cared about?”
An embarrassingly obvious lie. Why not write instead
“Why go to war, for example, over an island no one in my narrow circle of leftist metropolitan drones cared about?”
Joshua:
I’m just old enough to remember the hatefest directed at Raegan. In those days there was no alternative to the state media, no blogs to balance the Noise.
What I find interesting is that while Thatcher and Reagan were viewed as being closely aligned at the time they were in office, today Reagan is generally revered in the US whereas Thatcher seems to be more and more villified in the UK. Oh, there are unreconstructed hard-core leftists who still despise him, but I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of the vast majority of people over here, even the liberals. My sense is that’s not true in the UK. Am I wrong?
I suppose their personalities were different. Reagan probably was as affable as he seemed- was Thatcher always the dominatrix character that came across our TV screens?
PACE was more of a mixed bag than you give it credit for, I think. As written, it was barely different from the Judges Rules, but a lot more well respected and observed by constables.
It has somewhat abused by stretched police interpretations of their powers (“arrest to question”, is the main abuse – as written it reads like a power for life and limb situations), which have been indulged by the courts for some reason (as far as I can tell largely because they haven’t been challenged by anyone with a good lawyer) but most of the poison attributed to PACE is in reality subsequent amendments.
What I remember about Maggie was unsullied Leadership. She didnt hesitate about the Falklands, she gave better than she got in every parliamentary broadcast, and reshaped the politics of your island.
The consensus that caused, enabled and was promoted by Margaret Thatcher’s time in office led to about three decades of relative common sense in many quarters.
She failed a lot but her overall influence was beneficial.
The reasoning that led to the dark days of the mid seventies, and those that are upon us now, became ridiculous and stupid and obviously wrong during her time of influence.
It has taken the collectivists those thirty years to re-write and recondition that consensus and bring back the stupidity that has become acceptable.
Human nature.
So sure of what it thinks. So subject to manipulation!
I find it highly ironic that the British left is so demented in their hatred of Thatcher that they take the side of a right-wing south American military junta over her.
Laird: No, you’re not wrong.
Why is the Spectator paying a far left film reviewer?
If the Barclay brothers want to throw money about (without checking who they are giving it to) then they can give me the money – let us just forget what I have said about them in relation to Sark……….
“It is the editor who decides who the film reviewer is” – well then get a new editor, or at least tell this one to stop giving leftists money.
“No one cared about Falklands” – “no one” cared about the invasion, if by “no one” one means the vast majority of the British population.
“The human cost of her economic polices”.
What polcies would these be? The INCREASE in government sector wages in 1979?
The failure to do anything real about union power for the first three years of the government?
The INCREASE in general government spending (such as that on the NHS)?
No – I thought not.
The problem with people who attack the “human cost of Mrs Thatcher’s policies” is that they do not have a clue what those policies were. They have never done any factual research in their lives.
By the way the film does not really deal with Mrs Thatcher’s beliefs – largely bacause neither the actress or the person who made the film have any real understanding of those beliefs (they are both leftists).
Paul, I have read a few reviews now and it appears your assessment of this film is accurate. I will, however, take the time to see it and when I have done so, review it for this site.
As for the political views of Spectator columnists, it has always had a scattering of views, outside of the main political columns and the leader, which have tended in recent years to be gently pro-Cameron although I detect signs of waning patience from Fraser Nelson.
For example, look at some of the book reviewers, or the columnists at the back (Jeremy Clarke, Taki, Melissa Kite. Back in the 1980s, there was a mix of views also. And Rod Liddle, who is a lefty who seems to have rather salty views about immigration, etc, falls into no very obvious category.
The kind of columnists who do really drive me up the wall are the sort of sneering types with no very obvious philosophy at all (AA Gill, Giles Coren, Hugo Rifkind, etc). They remind me of people I occasionally have to sit next to at dinner parties.
I wish I had seen “Machine Gun Preacher”.
By the way the leftists over at Wikipedia attack it (via their normal method of citing publications that are critical of it – why Wikipedia thinks citing other people saying “this is no good” than just saying, in the first person, “I think this is no good” is beyond me) I would have loved it.
I will get the DVD in March.