Kyle Smith: 'Iron Lady' a Fitting Tribute to British Leader

There must have been some ferocious re-writing going on behind the scenes of “The Iron Lady.”

The upcoming biopic of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher seemed like yet another liberal Hollywood hatchet job, according to an early script review done here earlier this year.

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Now, the film is being shown to select film critics, and right-of-center scribe Kyle Smith is weighing in with a glowing assessment of the movie.

Meryl Streep is terrific and should win an Oscar for a deeply engaged, highly sympathetic portrayal of Margaret Thatcher as a strong-willed leader and an icon of womanhood who cracked the ultimate Old Boy Network, got the British economy booming again, made a series of tough decisions in the Falkland Islands war that resulted in total victory together with a restoration of British patriotic pride and enjoyed a long and loving marriage with Denis (an impish Jim Broadbent) that unfortunately ended with his death by cancer. There is not much politics in the film (and still less economics) and issues such as the miners’ strike and the IRA hunger strike are barely alluded to. But this is an admiring look at an indomitable figure and forceful politico (who is shown not only acting with great courage and decisiveness in the Falklands War but also personally hand-writing agonized letters to the families of fallen British troops).

Could the film’s even-handed treatment of Lady Thatcher work against its Oscar chances? We’ll see.

Moviegoers can decide for themselves when the film opens on Dec. 30.