The Lady

For the first time, a woman is elected to lead her country.  She is strong and determined, urging reform, even when unpopular or misunderstood. 

Politics remains a man’s world, and she must fight vested interests at every turn.  Yet her opponents underestimate her powerful mix of charm and authority, and she makes a great – as yet unfinished – impact on world affairs. 

Oh, and there’s a feature film just released about her.

Well yes, Margaret Thatcher does fit the bill, and Meryl Streep is lauded for her disconcertingly believable performance in Phyllida Lloyd’s The Iron Lady.  But the above description actually relates to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, celebrated in another biopic, Luc Besson’s similarly entitled The Lady.

And the comparisons don’t end there.  Both are sustained by their deeply-held beliefs as well as supportive families.  They broke the mould of politics in their countries, not just as women, but as leaders with a new and radical approaches.

But whilst one’s Ghandi-like non-violent approach in her own country wins her the Nobel Peace Prize, the other shows dogged (and dirty in the case of the Belgrano) determination to regain tiny territories the other side of the world. 

Suu Kyi is presented as having greatness thrust upon her thanks to her father being a national hero, whereas Thatcher was an ordinary grocer’s daughter who used her guile, determination and naked ambition to make it to the top.

As a film, The Lady unfolds chronologically, with tension created as we travel between the exoticism and lush paddies of South East Asia and the grand, rainy suburbs of Oxford (a journey familiar to me!), moving to an unfinished ending.  In contrast The Iron Lady has a more interesting cinematic structure, being told largely in flashback from the viewpoint of a rapidly declining Thatcher.

The two differ greatly not only as women, but also as mothers and wives.  Suu Kyi stays in her beloved Burma to lead its fledgling democracy, knowing that to leave will see her exiled.  But she is distraught by her separation from her two boys and loving husband, who is smoking himself to an early grave.  Thatcher too relies on her Denis, but pushes him aside and neglects her children as her ambition takes hold, later demeaning her caring daughter Carol whilst idolizing Mark, her absent, no-good son.

The portrayal of Suu Kyi is uncomplicated, maybe even uncritical.  But after all, what’s not to admire?  Meanwhile, Thatcher’s legacy is bitterly disputed.  Occasional footage of the miners, poll tax riots or the Falklands attempt to offer some balance, but it’s told in a way in which you can’t help but side with the heroine.  

In fairness, she had a difficult inheritance:  the country was a basket-case, gripped by unbridled unionism and welfare dependency.  But Thatcher’s medicine was to mercilessly destroy the country’s industrial heartlands, and promote individualism to the point of uncaring greed.

As one who grew up in 1980’s Britain – unwillingly one of ‘Thatcher’s children’ - I feel her legacy was less one of the principled, steadfast leader portrayed on screen, and more of a 'headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated woman' who plunged the nation to unknown depths of selfishness.  (Not my description, but rather that of an ICI interviewer on rejecting a 23 year old Miss Roberts!).

One of her most damaging legacies was that Britain became the ‘dirty man of Europe’, with a truly shocking environmental record.  Thatcher’s selfish approach is summarized by her policy on green transport:  "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure."  Whether or not she actually said it, she clearly actioned it, and the country is only just recovering from her misguided promotion of cars and disastrous destruction of public transport.

Lloyd’s film is bravely-structured and superbly acted, but gives an unduly rosy picture of the tumultuous Britain of the 1980s.  Besson’s work may be cinematically cautious and ideologically less challenging, but the story and scenery left me feeling it gives the truer representation of a great lady.

The Iron Lady will get the Oscars.  But the true plaudits should go to The Steel Orchid.