Meryl Streep movie is Rubbish

Politaholic has just seen the Meryl Streep Thatcher movie and it is garbage. It isn't that is pro-Thatcher, of course it is. It is that there is virtually no politics in it. The little bit of politics there is in it is comic book. For the most part it is about an old lady suffering from dementia, it could be any old lady really. It has little to do with Thatcher. If I were a Thatcheritre I would think this a movie that demeaned her. Of course the Thatcherites love it, because they think it will rehabilitate the evil old bag.

Meryl is obviously a diva big time. Hardly anyone else gets any screen time; Richard E Grant plays Heseltine: blink and you will miss him. It's all about Meryl. The only other actor given any screen time is Jim Broadbent doing his genial old buffer routine - he has done it as Mr Iris Murdoch, Mr Mary Whitehouse and God knows who else. It's wearing a bit thin. Meryl of course is always Meryl - there is no suspension of disbelief, you never believe for a second that this is Thatcher, always that this is Meryl acting Thatcher (isn't she good? no, not if she can't disappear behind her character, not if you never for a single moment forget that this is Meryl being Thatcher). For me Lindsay Duncan as Thatcher was excellent; miles and miles better than this crap (and Lindsay Duncan's was not an entirely unsympathetic portrait, a more complex one perhaps). The other thing about the Streep movie is the screenplay. God it's awful.

Now I did see a really good movie. The Artist. If you don't see this you are really missing something exceptional.