A few weeks ago, I read that Meryl Streep was interested in player former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. I didn’t write about it at the time because it all sounded very theoretical, like the movie probably wouldn’t get made and that Meryl was just talking out of her ass about her dream roles. But I was wrong – it looks like an Iron Lady bio-pic is in the works, with Meryl attached. The problem? Margret Thatcher isn’t doing so well, and the Thatcher family has grave concerns that the whole project is going to turn into some disrespectful “Left-wing fantasy”.
A film about Margaret Thatcher’s life, which is expected to star Meryl Streep, shows the former prime minister as a dementia-sufferer looking back at her life with sadness. Although the prospect of Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher may have pleased some admirers of the Conservative former prime minister, her children have been horrified to discover more about the film.
Mandrake hears that the screenplay of The Iron Lady depicts Baroness Thatcher as an elderly dementia-sufferer looking back on her career with sadness. She is shown talking to herself and unaware that her husband, Sir Denis Thatcher, has died.
“Sir Mark and Carol are appalled at what they have learnt about the film,” says a friend of the family. “They think it sounds like some Left-wing fantasy. They feel strongly about it, but will not speak publicly for fear of giving it more publicity.”
Cameron McCracken, the managing director of the film-maker Pathé, confirms: “It is true that the film is set in the recent past and that Baroness Thatcher does look back on both the triumphs and the lows of her extraordinary career.
“It is a film about power and the price that is paid for power. In that sense, it is the story of every person who has ever had to balance their private life with their public career.”
He says Lady Thatcher’s health will be featured, but insists that it will be “treated with appropriate sensitivity”. He adds of the film: “Although fictional, it will be fair and accurate.”
[From The Telegraph]
First: Always trust someone named “McCracken”. Secondly: Always trust Meryl. I trust Meryl not to make an exploitative or nasty film about Baroness Thatcher (I didn’t know she was a Baroness!). Meryl is the best actress working today, and she’s got the industry pull to ensure that Thatcher’s life and illness is treated with respect. Most likely the screenwriter and director are just using Thatcher’s dementia as a story-telling tool to revisit Thatcher’s life and work. Eh.
Header: Meryl on April 12, 2010. Thatcher on July 1, 2010. Credit: WENN.
Conservatives have good reason to distrust Hollywood.
Recent example is the slobbering portrayal of Che Guevara, who anybody who bothers to research will learn was an absolute coward and an ammoral murderer.
One of my favorite movies is The Queen. My friends think it is boring but I think it is beautiful and the acting is fantastic. I love the scenery, I love the clothes, I love the corgies. It never gets boring to me. My point, though, is that if you are to read the plot of The Queen, without seeing the film, you may easily think that Queen Elizabeth is cast as a heartless bitch who did not allow the people of England to properly mourn the life of Princess Di. However, if you watch the film,you will see that Helen Mirren does a brilliant job of making us sympathize with Queen Elizabeth, who was stuck in an impossible position, and it is Tony Blair, in my opinion, who comes across as a bit of a jerk. I bet Meryl Streep can do something very similiar with Margaret Thatcher.
I kind of side with the family. Whether or not you followed her politics, she was an extremely strong woman and this movie could show her as weak, perhaps destroying her “legacy.”
Funny though, I clicked the link assuming the family would be pissed since Meryl isn’t British.
@Tess, say what you will, but Che was no coward.
Eh? I don’t know if I would ever watch Meryl in a non-comedy again. She is just so funny now!
Murdering bound, gagged and blindfolded men is not cowardly???
I like Meryl, but this is total BS. Portraying Thatcher as weak and addled is exactly how not to bring this story to life. Hopefully, this will get a much need re-write before hitting screens.
Oh shut up Tess, this is straight from Che’s Wikipedia entry:
“According to Guzman, Guevara was shot through the right calf, his hair was matted with dirt, his clothes were shredded, and his feet were covered in rough leather sheaths. Despite his haggard appearance, he recounts that “Che held his head high, looked everyone straight in the eyes and asked only for something to smoke.” De Guzman states that he ‘took pity’ and gave him a small bag of tobacco for his pipe, with Guevara then smiling and thanking him. Later on the night of October 8, Guevara, despite having his hands tied, kicked Bolivian Officer Espinosa into the wall, after the officer entered the schoolhouse in order to snatch Guevara’s pipe from his mouth as a souvenir. In another instance of defiance, Guevara spat in the face of Bolivian Rear Admiral Ugarteche shortly before his execution.”
“When Sergeant Terán entered the hut, Che Guevara then told his executioner, ‘I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man!’ Terán hesitated, then opened fire with his semiautomatic rifle, hitting Guevara in the arms and legs. Guevara writhed on the ground, apparently biting one of his wrists to avoid crying out. Terán then fired several times again, wounding him fatally in the chest at 1:10 pm, according to Rodríguez. In all, Guevara was shot nine times. This included five times in the legs, once in the right shoulder and arm, once in the chest, and finally in the throat.”
Yeah, Che sounds like a real coward *eyeroll*
Take your right wing propaganda and stuff it. So much for “bothering to research.”
I think her family is more horrified that the movie is going to be sad than they are that its going to be played by Meryl. They’d probably prefer the movie showcase her accomplishments in a more pleasant light.
Wait a minute, back up the boat a bit – Sir Mark? When the hell did that happen or is it an automatic upgrade in title when the head of the General Pinochet fanclub got her title of Baroness?
Meryl Streep can approach the role with as much (misguided) reverence as she likes, she might not have any say in the editing. A very famous example is Alan Rickman who played deValera in the film “Michael Collins”. Rickman did some serious study of Dev and that era of politics and has said that the screenplay that he acted to was drastically altered in the editing.
Even more damning was the statement that he probably wouldn’t have agreed to the part if he thought that that’s how the film would turn out! (heard in a radio interview with Newstalk106 last year).
@ Shannon
If you are seriously citing Wikipedia as a credible source, I am very sad for you.
Wow great research from the highly esteemed, always accurate source of wikipedia. And even if that is 100% true, does being “brave” in death automatically make someone cool enough to forgive the murder and atrocities they committed throughout their life?? (Oh yeah and my sources are family who lived the Cuban revolution and later had to flee to the U.S.) But I guess Che and communism will always be fabulous to the Hollywood and the brain-dead people who buy into to the ignorant fantasy 🙂
The biography Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson contains the same information as the Wiki article Shannon quoted. I’ve watched a documentary recently where they interviewed the man who ordered Che’s death and he maintains the information is accurate.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, (i very well may be) but wasn’t Margret a much loved leader in Great Britain? I thought she was comparable to Ronald Reagan in politics and in popularity. I think this movie could go to hell really quickly in the hands of the wrong person.Hopefully it isn’t because I would def. go see it.
That that Che movie was insane. His death (to me) is irrelevant to the facts about his life.
His death doesn’t negate all the other crap Che did. For him to be held up as an idol is ridiculous.
@Mairead: Agree about the power of editing. Just look at “The Devil’s Own”, the 1997 film with Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford.
Apparently both men loved the script and the director (Alan Pakula) enough to sign onto the project, but once filming started it got messy. Brad Pitt tried to walk off the set and was threatened with an injunction, and both actors did the press as a united front in order to disclaim any responsibility for the film- basically they went on the press junket and said the film sucked and wasn’t what they originally signed on for.
So it can happen that a film is taken away from the actors- still, my money would be on Meryl in a fight between studio and actor.
@Oi, depends how much you agree with the Thatcherite mantra “Greed is Good”, I suppose.
I can’t speak for the British public, but she was pretty popular with the yuppies and Conservatives/Tory supporters (right wingers).
But I doubt that her and her government policies with regard to the miners and mining towns she closed (aka traditional Labour supporters, so of no real political value to the Tories) left their communities absolutely devastated without any real employment opportunities and all the attendant social ills with it, mean that they revere her.
But hey, I’m Irish and we tended to have a more jaundiced view towards Tory governments in any event 😉
Hollywood nitwits like Soderburg and Oliver Stone, who by the way, would never choose to live in Cuba or Venezuela, churn out liberal fantasies about violent revolutionaries and the impact of their actions.
For a more balanced view of history, try reading “Exposing the Real Che and the Useful Idiots who Idolize Him” and “Fidel, Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant,” books by Humberto Fontova.
Also recommend Andy Garcia’s film “The Lost City.”
Hey if someone thinks the movie can make money, it will be made- these people should take a sip off a brewed pot of reality and be grateful that the glorious Ms. Streep is going to be attached to the film. The only other well known respectable actresses who could possibly do the role justice are Dame Dench, Mirren, and maybe Emma Thompson..
@ctkat – I didn’t know any of that, mainly because I’ve never wanted to watch it (Brad Pitt as a glorified ‘Ra-head? no thanks!). Thanks for the info though.
(Oh yeah and my sources are family who lived the Cuban revolution and later had to flee to the U.S.)
lolol … yeah, that’s some reliable sourcing…
Conservatives could not have made Reagan into the icon he is without a great deal of creative revision.
Most people have reservations about a film or book being done on them if they are not in charge. But the person depicted usually does not want their flaws shown & it is inaccurate to show only one side. I trust Meryl to do a fair respectful job.
To be fair e.non they would be a primary source – not an infallible one as people’s memories are fallible, but still. Interestingly, in relation to the Garcia programme; I hadn’t realised that Andy Garcia himself was born in Cuba and escaped when he was a young child not long after the Revolution.
I’m still trying to figure out what Che has to do with this – there is always going to be a hugely different treatment of someone who became an icon, fundamentally because of the “romance” of dying young and having an iconic poster made of him by Jim Fitzpatrick and one of the most powerful and divisive Conservative politicians of the last century who also quite frankly has blood on her hands from her support of General Pinochet if nothing else.
And that is leaving aside completely the fact that she was part of the Governments that lied and colluded in the Bloody Sunday atrocity, was very likely to have colluded in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1973 and 74, mishandled completely the Hunger Strikes making martyrs of Bobby Sands and selected morally bankrupt Cabinet members and so on and so forth. So yes, her family have every reason to be leery of exactly what the public will be reminded of.
Anybody else notice that Margaret Thatcher and Meryl Streep have matching large foreheads?
I’d bust up a union for some Krug right now.
I can’t think of any better actress. I love Meryl!
Why do I need to read about anybody’s political thoughts and opinions on A GOSSIP SITE?
That’s what my twitter is for!
SHEESH!
HAHAHA!!! @Tess, you have the nerve to criticize some one for using Wikipedia as a source of information and then tell us to get “a more balanced view of history” by reading ““Exposing the Real Che and the Useful Idiots who Idolize Him” and “Fidel, Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant” Look at the titles of those books and then think about the meaning of the word balanced in that context. You mean unbiased, however, biased is exactly what those books are and proudly purport themselves to be. Don’t make proclamations about any topic you don’t seem to have any facts about and then show your extreme ignorance. You disregard the fact that history should always strive to be UNBIASED and BALANCED.I don’t know much about Che Guevara, but I do know that you are an idiot.
I remember reading a while back – years ago, really – about the possibility of a Margaret Thatcher bio-pic starring both Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett playing her at different stages of her life. I think I actually peed my pants a little (TMI, sorry) at the thought because they’re my favorite actresses in the whole world and my dream is to see them together on screen – although in this case they wouldn’t appear “together”, it’d be fantastic, to say the least!
Even without Cate I’ll be looking forward to this movie – any project that Meryl is attached to is a must see.
I don’t know how they gives her some parts to recite, this old queen does me really disgust (her last movie)
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