It’s perhaps difficult to tell across the pond the immense hatred that’s still held by many for former British PM Margaret Thatcher over here, close to twenty years after she left power. Across ten years at the top, she instigated a series of policies which devastated entire industries, and irrevocably changed the country for the worse; in the North of England, merely mentioning her name is almost guaranteed to unleash a rare kind of fury. But all that doesn’t mean that she’s not an interesting subject for a movie, and it looks like one of the most gifted actresses around is going to tackle her.
The Hollywood Reporter says that Meryl Streep is in negotiations to play the PM in “Thatcher” for Pathe and BBC Films, with Jim Broadbent also in talks to play her husband Denis. While this writer was hoping that the plot would be something close to “Hostel,” it will in fact be set over the 17 days building up to the Falklands War in 1982, a ludicrous, last-gasp of British imperialism that resulted in the death of over a thousand British and Argentinean soldiers, and a near war-crime in the sinking of the retreating Argentinean ship The ARA General Belgrano. The war restored Thatcher’s popularity, boosting her hugely in approval ratings and winning her a second term.
With its short timeframe, it sounds like the film will be similar to Stephen Frears’ “The Queen” in approach, and with Brian Fillis, who was behind the excellent TV biopics “An Englishman In New York” and “The Curse Of Steptoe,” it’s unlikely to be a simple apologia. The major downside is that it’s likely to be directed by Phyllida Lloyd, who despite a long and successful career in theatre and opera, demonstrated that she had no idea what to do with a movie career on the mega-hit “Mamma Mia.” Still, it’s a role that Streep was born to play, and the Academy might as well start chiseling her name onto the 2012 Best Actress trophy now. But still, an American playing an iconic British figure like Thatcher? That would be like Rachel Weisz playing Jackie Kennedy or something… Oh. In the meantime, Hefner’s Britpop classic “The Day That Thatcher Dies” can be heard below.
