Margaret Thatcher: The Iron Lady

Told by way of retrospective interviews and actuality, this is quite an interesting chronology of the life, rise and fall of a woman who dominated the British, and to a certain extent the global, political stage during the 1980s. Sadly, like so many of these style documentaries, it is somewhat adulatory in it's delivery. We celebrate, rightly up to point, the achievements of a woman entering British politics in the 1950s and having to fight a series of battles just to get nominated for a ballot paper, let alone elected - her struggle with a sexist, nigh on misogynist environment where women were rarely, if ever, considered suitable for political life by the establishment gentlemen. The use of footage to illustrate the story is straightforward enough, but the commentaries lack punch - the visuals allow us to see what we see, and those of us who lived through her administrations will remember her as we saw her at the time, and through whatever coloured lens we chose to look at her legacy. This film, however, makes little attempt to offer any critical judgement on that legacy, and though it does illustrate just how determined/bloody-minded the woman was, it offers us precious little insight as to what made her tick, that we had not already seen many times before.

Fascinating, yet slightly cursory, account of Mrs Thatcher's rise to power and her downfall. Although the commentary seemed fair, I had expected more about her flaws and mistakes, which made the film feel quite like an apotheosis. Another clear omission was the lack of discussion of the wider context of the times - the social and economic impact of her time in office. Certainly worth a watch for anyone who lived through those times.