'The Iron Lady' review:

There are few political figures hated more vehemently than Margaret Thatcher. She has her defenders, but even twenty years after being forced from power by her own party, Thatcher's name provokes strong emotions. Perhaps now - with public services again being cut as the country lives through recession and mass unemployment - isn't the most sensitive time to release a biopic celebrating her life. And yet here comes 'The Iron Lady', courtesy of writer Abi Morgan and Phyllida Lloyd, the director of 'Mamma Mia!'.

The film - as everybody surely knows - stars 16-time Oscar nominee Meryl Streep as a softer, prettier, more smiley version of Thatcher, who exists somewhere under ten pounds of make-up. Taking power in 1979 she comes over as something like Julia Child (the ungainly, nasal TV chef Streep impersonated in 'Julie & Julia') with pre-emptive missile strike capability and big hair. More effective are the scenes in which Streep plays a modern day version of the former leader: an old lady grappling with dementia alone in her flat. It'd be difficult for even the most ardent socialist not to see the humanity here, which in some respects makes the film resemble 'Downfall' - the German film that chronicled the final days of Hitler.

It's strongest in these moments, as frequent backflashes through Thatcher's political life are oddly neutered in a way which should infuriate her supporters and detractors in equal measure. Possibly mindful of the divisive nature of her politics, this Weinstein-backed Oscar bait prefers to see her life through a less complex prism: one of the first female leader of a Western power - an undeniable watershed achievement, even if she did little to aid working women during the 80s. But with Thatcher's social policies still felt by Britain's poorest communities, making a film predominantly about Thatcher's gender - and her girl power rise to the forefront of a male dominated world - feels roughly equivalent to focussing on Hitler's vegetarianism.

There is some stuff here about whether or not she was so guided by principle and singular conviction as to be obstinate (a word she gets right away in a crossword), whilst Morgan's screenplay even deserves some credit for its framing of the sinking of the Belgrano as a terrible decision which prolonged the Falklands war and caused the deaths of many British serviceman (as well as 300 Argentine sailors). But otherwise, beyond presenting protesters and Labour MPs as red-faced shouty men, the film tries very hard to run away from politics. Prominent Tories have been irked by the film's portrayal of Thatcher's mental decline, with the leader shown going very clearly mad during a cabinet meeting (the film's strongest sequence), but it's overall unlikely to offend anybody too severely.

How you feel about Streep's Thatcher will no doubt have more to do with your politics going in than anything in the film itself, which isn't helped by its tepid ITV drama atmosphere. Perhaps the most damning indictment of 'The Iron Lady' is that it isn't even attempting to be as incendiary as its subject. We might have expected a film that would, at the very least, provoke discussion. I'd be very surprised if too many audience members found themselves thinking about this disposable pap too long after the fact. Though it should go without saying by now that Olivia Coleman is brilliant as daughter Carol, while Jim Broadbent, who plays husband Dennis, is good value as ever - only Streep's reputation and inevitable Academy Award nomination (and possible win) are keeping this film from cultural oblivion.

'The Iron Lady' is on a wide release now and rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'Tyrannosaur' review:

Olivia Colman is lovely isn't she? I don't know her personally, but what I mean is she seems lovely on the telly. Turning up in TV sitcoms, as Sophie in 'Peep Show' or the vicar's wife in 'Rev', I am never in any doubt that her characters are basically good and beyond harmless, probably in part thanks to her big, friendly eyes. She certainly isn't someone you want to see beaten, raped and literally pissed on by Eddie Marsan in a grim, socially real, British movie about social isolation and domestic violence. But here we are.

I'm fairly sure, unless you're some sort of psychopath, there aren't any people you wish to see in that situation, but for me that goes doubly for lovely, smiling Olivia Colman. Which is one of the many reasons Paddy Considine's debut film as a writer and director, 'Tyrannosaur', can be pretty hard to take. Terrifically acted and deeply moving, but a tough watch indeed.



In it Colman is Hannah, a devout Christian woman who leaves her middle class house every day to work in a drab charity shop on the rough side of town - probably just to get away from her vicious husband James, played by an especially scary Marsan. James is possessive and spiteful and some of the things he does to Hannah defy belief, existing outside the realms of even your cruelest imagination. The violence in 'Tyrannosaur' may be less explicit and frequent than scenes in the similarly grim 'Kill List' (also from Warp Films), or even the recent thriller 'Drive', but it's far more hard-hitting because it's based in a deeply upsetting reality. And it somehow keeps getting worse, with the level of abuse suffered by Hannah still being revealed right up to the very end.

It is working at the charity shop that Hannah meets Joseph played by Peter Mullan, who is the sort of unpredictable, violent and all too recognisable old drunk that spends his days drinking in the corner of his local boozer, babbling incomprehensibly to himself. He is the opposite of harmless and when we first see Joseph he is kicking his dog to death in the street. After a chance encounter he befriends Hannah and we get to glimpse the underlying tragedy of this disturbing individual you'd be wise to cross the street to avoid. Both characters - and even the sickening James to an extent - are depicted with considerable compassion and deeply affecting empathy, with neither straying into caricature.



Mullan is for all intents and purposes the star of the film, which mostly takes his point of view - and he is excellent in it, with the sometime director (of 'The Magdalene Sisters' and recently 'Neds') able to portray this dog-kicking racist as rounded and human without undergoing some unlikely third act u-turn. With that in mind it seems unfair to single out Colman in this review, but there is nothing to be done about that because, for me at least, she is the heart of the movie and the key ingredient. It is really something that she can play this doe-eyed Christian victim without making her infuriating or wet in the least, and the more we care about Hannah the more wretched much of what you see will likely make you feel.

On this first showing, it would seem Considine is a very comfortable director of actors and an intelligent writer of characters. If he has displayed any similarity with his friend and frequent collaborator Shane Meadows, then it is in the fact that he has used his debut feature to take the side of elements of society most would not willingly gravitate toward, and he has done so with confidence and a keen eye for social detail.

'Tyrannosaur' is rated '18' by the BBFC and is on general release in the UK.