The Iron Lady: What the critics said Stripped down, the story's primarily an enjoyably shiny setting for Streep's jaw-droppingly brilliant performance. Kate Stables, Review: The Iron Lady, Total Film, 22 Nov 2011 Apart from the great Lear interpreters, Streep has given us the best impression we've had of a potentate suffering from loss of power and fear of madness. Despite Streep's eloquence and wit, however, this biopic, written by Abi Morgan, and directed by Phyllida Lloyd, is brutally misconceived. A good forty per cent is devoted to Thatcher in her confused dotage. David Denby, The Film File: The Iron Lady, The New Yorker This is a brave stab at a contemporary life, and even with its flaws it does Margaret Thatcher a certain grudging justice. David Gritten, The Iron Lady: review, The Telegraph, 15 Nov 2011 Meryl Streep's knockout performance lifts The Iron Lady out of complete mediocrity, but the film around her is wishy-washy and unfocused. Whether you love or loathe Margaret Thatcher, those are not things you can say about her. Alex Von Tunzelmann, The Iron Lady was more than just a fabulous blow-dry, The Guardian, 29 December 2011 It is Thatcher without Thatcherism. It is Thatcher as a kind of Boadicea or Queen Elizabeth I. It is Gloriana of the kind that will please the Right Deborah Ross, Plucky Woman, The Spectator, 17 December 2011 ... there's little sense of the outside world, the human cost, or the ripple effect of divisive government policies. It is a movie that gives us Thatcher without Thatcherism. Yet Streep, it transpires, is the one great weapon of this often silly and suspect picture. Her performance is astonishing and all but flawless; a masterpiece of mimicry which re-imagines Thatcher in all her half-forgotten glory. Xan Brooks, The Iron Lady: first screening, The Guardian, 14 November 2011 One of Streep's finest-ever performances. But beyond that - whatever Morgan and Lloyd's intentions - it's little more than a myth-enshrining exercise. Dan Jolin, Review: The Iron Lady, Empire Online