Outcry over Meryl Streep performance

Outcry over Meryl Streep performance - The iconic actress comes under fire for her portrayal of former British leader Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher’s Colleagues Haven’t Seen Meryl Streep’s ‘Iron Lady,’ but They Know They Hate It. Making a movie about a famous, controversial figure is incredibly tempting for lots of reasons. For one, everyone knows the person and will be curious about the filmmakers' take.

For another, if the movie is done well, Oscar nominations await: Five of the last seven Best Actor prizes (and four of the last six Best Actress trophies) went to people playing real-life figures. There's just one downside: Because so many folks know the famous person being dramatized, they're going to be extra-critical about anything that seems off.

That's happening right now with "The Iron Lady," the forthcoming movie about former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Opening at the end of December, it's seen to be a possible Oscar contender with Meryl Streep's portrayal of Thatcher almost certain to snag a Best Actress nomination. But Thatcher's former advisers have already decided the movie gets the Conservative Party leader all wrong -- never mind, that most of them have only seen the trailer.

One of the people speaking out is Tim Bell, who handled Thatcher's public relations and election campaigns during the '80s. He told The Telegraph he isn't going to see "The Iron Lady" because he already knows it won't be good:

"I can't be bothered to sensationalise this rubbish.

I can't see the point of this film. Its only value is to make some money for Meryl Streep and whoever wrote it. I have no interest in seeing it. I don't need a film to remind me of my experiences of her. It is a non-event.

It won't make any difference to her place in history of the fact of what she did."

Norman Tebbit, who served in Thatcher's Cabinet, at least saw the "Iron Lady" trailer, but that was enough for him to be annoyed in an op-ed in The Telegraph:

[Thatcher] was always open to persuasion, but only by argument and facts properly marshalled and presented, and she could be hard, perhaps at times unfairly so, on colleagues who failed her standards.

However, she was never, in my experience, the half-hysterical, over-emotional, over-acting woman portrayed by Meryl Streep.

These aren't the first shots fired by the pro-Thatcher crowd. Back in August, some friends of the 86-year-old leader attended an early screening, with one anonymous viewer declaring afterward, "I didn't come here to see a film about granny going mad," apparently a reference to the fact that the movie (helmed by Streep's "Mamma Mia!" director Phyllida Lloyd) delves into Thatcher's eventual dementia.

It's not new for a high-profile Oscar hopeful to get criticized for its supposed inaccuracies. The movie that "The Iron Lady" most reminds us of in its trailers, Best Picture-winner "The King's Speech," had plenty of detractors for its changing of history. As for "The Iron Lady," the irony is that the critics who have seen the movie think it paints Thatcher in a mostly sympathetic light. If anything, they prefer Streep's performance to the movie itself. "This is a brave stab at a contemporary life, and even with its flaws it does Margaret Thatcher a certain grudging justice," The Telegraph's David Gritten wrote. "Awards should be coming Streep's way; yet her brilliance rather overshadows the film itself." Personally, we don't have an opinion on whether the movie will be good or bad. We sorta think it makes sense to actually see the film first before making those judgments.

via: yahoo