The Iron Lady screened at Lok Virsa

Director: Phyllida Lloyd

Cast: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Harry Lloyd, Anthony Head

Islamabad

Lok Virsa successfully managed to hold eleven-day annual Mela with smashing success. This can be evaluated both by the performance of the artists as well as enthusiastic response by hundreds of thousands of audiences who visited Lok Virsa for eleven days. Apart from hundreds of stalls, there was Mandwa stall where film quiz were held every day and gifts for winners came in shape of a coffee/tea mug with images of films screened at Mandwa in the last one year. This attractive collage imprinted on the mug carried Sabiha, Santosh Kumar Noorjehan and Roman Holiday. This was keepsake for the winners and many among the participants were even willing to buy the mug for any price.

And the Mandwa selected British film ‘Iron Lady’ for screening on Saturday. Released in 2011, ‘The Iron Lady’ is based on the life of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the longest serving prime Minister for eleven long years.

Directed by Phyllida Lloyd, ‘Iron Lady’ became a pretty respectable film, winning Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and other awards for Meryl Streep. The film also won for Best Makeup and Hair Style. Made at budget of $11 million, the film grossed over $115 million.

Meryl Streep who plays Mrs. Thatcher, attended House of Commons sessions before lensing, not just to be familiar with the prime minister but others working around her. This resulted in one of the finest performances of Meryl Streep. She received her 17th Academy Award nomination and finally won it. The film plot takes us back to 2008 in flashbacks when Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was bombed. In the beginning, we see Margaret Thatcher buying milk in a shop (during her reign, she stopped free milk with lunch in schools as part of budget cuts and children yelled "Margaret Thatcher milk snatcher"). The film finally shows Thatcher in tears on the death of her husband whose ghost consoles her that she was going to go on."You always have been" the ghost says. The very end of the film shows us former Prime Minister washing dishes in the kitchen. She has finally overcome her guilt and grief, ending up with a role she would never have taken up earlier in life.

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher's children were critical of ‘The Iron Lady’, calling it left-wing fantasy. Others liked it for a non-British Meryl Streep playing Thatcher. ‘Iron Lady’ covers Thatcher in the roles of a wife, mother and leader. We see her in days of glory as well as being dressed up with nowhere to go. A critic downplayed Meryl Streep for overshadowing everything and everyone in the entire film, leaving almost nothing for anyone else for performance on the screen. This is then a film where only Meryl Streep could come out brilliant and bring out the real essence of the character, setting a new benchmark with astonishing and remarkable performance about a woman who also happened to be the most influential lady coming from an average and ordinary background.

A movie website Rotten Tomato describes ‘The Iron Lady’ about a lady who came from nowhere to smash through barriers of gender and class barriers and to be heard in a male dominated macho world. It is truly mesmerizing work of a star-Meryl Streep who artfully inhabits her character with superpower. She comes out with truth and accuracy showing full understanding. "Life was tough for girls, but Margaret Thatcher was a tough girl". Some of the best lines in the film obviously come from Meryl Streep:

"If you take tough decisions, people will hate you today, but they will love you in generations" or "Gentlemen, shall we join the ladies".

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