Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley

Andrea Riseborough, who reminds me of Claire Hoy in The Crown, sometimes actually looks and sounds more like Queen Elisabeth, than Margaret Thatcher. But, she, along with a number of well-known actors and actresses have done a fairly decent job of portraying her rise to power in this production. It's not a documentary and that shows with the occasional foray into imagined conversations and interactions with various characters and scenarios. An interesting but not great interpretation of how this willful and determined woman overcame many obstacles in her fight to gain a place in parliament. She may not have thought of herself as a 'feminist', but she was certainly not the traditional wife and mother that the Conservative Party expected her to be. However one views her, she is still as divisive now as she was then. Her policies and beliefs shaped her whole life and changed Britain in many ways. An okay production but to be taken with a grain of salt.

'The Long Road to Finchley' presents Margaret Thatcher (nee Roberts) as a flirty and calculating young lady, hell bent on getting into the House of Commons and then on to the top (gamely played by Andrea Riseborough). It deals with her engagement to Denis (Rory Kinnear) and her - at first - friendship with Ted Heath (Samuel West playing the future PM as crippled with shyness and embarrassment around Mrs T), while dealing with her attempts to find a Tory seat to represent.

I loved the flighty character in her hats and pearls striding into the establishment (presented best by Geoffrey Palmer, and no one could display the indignation of England better), alongside her anonymous husband who was only useful to get his wife votes, and their twins who presented a withering annoyance. Despite its refusal to deal seriously with political issues, rather presenting Mrs Thatcher as the feminist dream to empower all women, this drama is interesting, and a good companion piece to the programme about her later years 'Margaret', made a year later.

I loathed Margaret Thatcher. I loved this film. It's perhaps the best political movie I've ever seen, certainly far far ahead of even the best American political films. It's an interesting approach to document Thatcher's early years rather than her later fame as prime minister. Yet the future leader is strongly evident in Andrea Riseborough's brilliant interpretation of Thatcher as an iron willed flirt. No small feat to transpose the well known Thatcher haughty expression, purposeful gait and swinging handbag to the younger and sexier woman of an earlier era. Rory Kinnear has captured Dennis Thatcher's bumbling anonymity perfectly. And Geoffrey Palmer... The wonderful and versatile Geoffrey Palmer... His curmudgeonly establishment Tory character is priceless. I stumbled on this film on TV Ontario. Rather than watch it, because I was tired, I recorded it. I'm glad I did because the DVD now has a place of honour among my "keepers."

Thailand is a place of my political background. It has been shifted back and forth between half-cooked democracy and full-fledged dictatorship. King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand and his network try to be perceived as impartial and above, but ultimately and stupidly sided with the latter, who preserves the monarchy's personal interests, in their narrow view, better. It is him who allows Thailand to be off the global chart, whenever his personal security seems threatened. We adopted Great Britain's parliamentary system mainly because the system allows the monarchy to co-exist, not because we believe in it. This is why a film like this one is marvelous in my eyes. No matter how playful the tone of the film is, as contrasting to the real Margaret Thatcher's seriousness, I still feel the sacredness of the parliamentary institutions and why it must be protected at all cost. All characters shown here, villainous or otherwise, are abided by such thought. Candidates can come and go, and the democratic institutions live on. This is a piece of communication that deepens the love for democracy and people's democratic traditions, without uttering the word democracy even once. This is we work so hard to ridding ourselves of those who undermine Thailand's era of infant democracy. Hopelessly shallow generals must be put back in place. The king and his nosy network must be put back in place, or risk losing it all this time. People had been too kind to them in the 1932 when a revolution took place. We allowed a snake with its backbone half-broken to crawl back and breed more little snakes over the years. Now, all the snakes have ganged up against democracy, we must study the sacredness and humour in a film such as this one and use the good blend as weapons. We do not have to agree or even like you, Mrs. Thatcher, but we respect your and your people's sense of self worthiness and make that clear in your political way.

If you're looking for an earnest biopic, this probably isn't the one for you. Quite a plain account of Thatcher's rise between Dartford and Finchley is characterised by a distorted, flirty Thatcher, which for ever how respectable a performance Riseborough made, the laboured jokes and a jaunty soundtrack leave it more with the trimmings of Cbeebies, than the political hike it was meant to depict.