The Iron Lady.

Jadis is the main antagonist in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. She is deemed to be an extraordinary evil being and is commonly referred to as the White Witch; she’s the one who froze Narnia in a hundred year winter. I can remember reading somewhere that this very wicked woman allegedly appears in different forms through out history!

Phyllida Lloyd’s, best known for the embarrassing Mamma Mia (2008), latest offering sets out to evoke sympathy for the former Tory Prime Minister Margaret Hilda Thatcher by allegedly showing the price she paid for power: bullshit you don’t have to be a Baroness to suffer from dementia! Care Homes are full to the brim with people who suffer the same non-specific illness syndrome and have never been any where near her unique position of power.

Mimicking this ‘poor little old lady’, first seen going into a corner shop to buy milk before walking home alone to discuss the price of this acquisition with her ‘dead’ husband Dennis, is Meryl Streep who it must be said deserved her many awards for this role. Although I would argue that Andrea Riseborough played the part much better in the BBC drama The Long Walk to Finchley?

The main problem with The Iron Lady (2011) is its neither a study of a war mongering, working class bashing, greed-encouraging politician or the study of a horrifically restricting illness like 2008’s Away from Her; it fouls on both counts. 

Margaret Thatcher 'eyeballing' a young pretender!

I make no apologies for paraphrasing critic Jeff Sawtell’s comment when he opined as to why would anyone want to make a loving film about a monster that did more harm to Britain’s industrial hinterland than Hitler’s bombers, the Americans I hear you say?