Review: 'The Iron Lady', a film by Phyllida Lloyd (*1/2)

It is indicative of the The Iron Lady's own weaknesses and of the self-consciousness with which the film's creators approach its subject-matter that director Phyllida Lloyd and leading lady Meryl Streep have been announcing to all and sundry that their film is not a biopic of Margaret Thatcher. The statement is in itself highly questionable, for a film that revisits the life of a public person from their youth to old age must necessarily be a biopic, just as a film where the characters momentarily abandon the storyline to sing songs is a musical or an account of a young man's day on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 is a war drama.

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Review: Another Year, a film by Mike Leigh

The object of Another Year, Mike Leigh’s latest film, is to make the viewer care about the joys and sorrows in the lives of a group of late-middle-aged friends and, for a film with no great deal of plot in the classical sense, Leigh’s endeavour is quiet an achievement. Weeks after you have seen the picture, its characters are still freshly and poignantly etched on your memory.

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