Film reviews
By Rama Gaind
Film: The Iron Lady
Stars: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Alexandra Roach, Harry Lloyd, Olivia Colman, John Sessions
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Golden Globe-winning actress Meryl Streep has come up trumps, again, in the lead role of The Iron Lady.
Her imitation of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is word-perfect and bears an uncanny resemblance to a woman who broke all barriers of class and gender to be heard in a male-dominated world.
This is an insightful portrait of an astonishing and multi-faceted woman.
No opinions are evident about Margaret Thatcher. She was a reality, always in control, so dominating in her manner that she commanded respect – from one and all.
Her formal declarations were accepted as truth.
While Streep is faultless as Lady Thatcher, director Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia!) and screenwriter Abi Morgan appear to be uncertain as to how to portray her.
Instead, with the aid of period footage, flashbacks, dialogue bites and sequence of overlapping film clips, the movie follows her rise, and rise. She held office for an unprecedented three terms.
The narrative concerns power and the price it exacts. When you revisit the key chapters in her life, there are also scenes that suggest an emotional distance from her children and reserved husband (Broadbent).
Margaret Thatcher had quite a life!
Film: The Descendents
Stars: George Clooney, Amara Miller, Beau Bridges, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, Michael Ontkean, Nick Krause, Robert Forster, Shailene Woodley
Director: Alexander Payne
Moving family drama in which George Clooney (Golden Globe winner) plays Matt King, a lawyer, with two daughters and a wife who is in hospital after a skiing accident.
He tries hard to continue living life as normal and handle the children – Scottie, 10, (Miller) and Alexandra, 17, Woodley).
However, attitudes take a turn when he learns that his wife was having an affair at the time of her accident.
While the pace sags at times, the film gives a whole new meaning to family and inheritance.
Clooney is incredible, the children are wonderful and Nick Krause manages to steal some scenes as Alexandra’s friend, Sid.
WAR HORSE: Steven Spielberg gives us a thrilling subject with a horse’s adventures on both sides of the trenches of World War I.
THE MUPPETS: Assisted by Jason Segel and Amy Adams, uncontrollable laughs are the order of the day as Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie and gang reunite.
HUGO: Martin Scorsese’s fanciful 3D family film about an orphan who lives within the walls of a Paris train station in the 1930s.
WE BOUGHT A ZOO: A touching comedy-drama, co-starring Scarlett Johansson, in which a widower (Matt Damon) moves with his kids into a zoo.
