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As mentioned and explained by visitors from the UK before, British newspapers are pro and contra Thatcher, so this might be a reason for such diverse press coverage on “The Iron Lady”, as summarized by the Los Angeles Times: If controversy equals box office, then “The Iron Lady,” Meryl Streep’s Margaret Thatcher biopic, is off to a promising start across the pond. According to a report in the British newspaper the Daily Mail, friends of Thatcher who attended an early screening of the film Saturday were outraged by its portrayal of their former prime minister as power-hungry leading up to and during her administration in the 1980s and conflicted and confused in her senescence. “I didn’t come here to see a film about granny going mad,” one anonymous viewer said of the movie, which is directed by Phyllida Lloyd (“Mamma Mia”) and stars Streep as the Conservative leader and Jim Broadbent as her husband, Denis Thatcher. According to the report, “The Iron Lady” contains scenes of Thatcher suffering nightmares over some of the major victories of her tenure — including the 1984-85 coal miners’ strike that lead to a weakened labor movement in Britain and the 1982 Falklands War — and sacrificing family for ambition. Viewers took particular offense at the depiction of the Thatcher marriage, including a scene in which a pink-turbaned Denis appears in a dream sequence to rail at his wife for her selfishness. Conservative MP Conor Burns told the paper: “Any portrayal of Margaret Thatcher that does not show her as one of the titans of British politics in the 20th Century will be a travesty. The idea that Denis would ever have been cruel to her is twisted and untrue. They were devoted.” Their article continues here.
