This peek at the later years of Margaret Thatcher blurs the line in a mirthful way between living and dead, objective reality and the spectral.
We’re invited to ponder universal questions such as whether we’ll see ghosts if we make it to our 80s—and will our ghosts be as puckish as Mrs. Thatcher’s translucent visitor.
Meryl Streep portrays the Prime Minister with dignity and discretion, walking a fine line between compassion for a great woman in decline and the comedic possibilities of an old kook who sees ghosts.
In Lady Thatcher’s case, the spook happens to be her late husband, Dennis.
Dennis (Jim Broadbent) is convinced that, throughout his life, Mrs. Thatcher hid jars of jam that he particularly favored. And he is determined to compel an accounting from his spouse in her twilight years.
Screenwriter Abi Morgan weaves this light-hearted tale of whimsical revenge into Thatcher’s life, as we flashback to her years as a grocer’s daughter, to Oxford and courtship by Dennis, to her 1959 entry into Parliament. However Morgan’s script strains for authenticity, cluttering the story with a lot of old politics from the 1980s.
During that decade, Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. She did some things, and had a war with Argentina and other people got mad and wrote up signs but the British kept electing her Prime Minister until 1990 when she resigned.
I must assume all this political business was deliberately kept in the story by director Phyllida Lloyd in order to break up the comedy with a completely unnecessary “serious” beat.
Thankfully Lloyd didn’t try morphing the film into some creepy tale like The Others. I don’t want my ghosts THAT scary. Besides, I think Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep would have quarreled off-screen.
If it were up to me I would’ve called this movie The Ghost and Mrs. Thatcher. But it's a minor complaint. (I won’t tell you the ending, but you’ll laugh when you learn what really happened to Dennis’ jam.)
A solid four stars for great acting and not a few belly laughs.
An interesting note: as a Baroness, Thatcher had permission to sit in the House of Lords. But she was barred because of an old rule that said you could not be in the House of Lords and see ghosts. One or the other, please.
That's a very British point of view.
