The Iron Lady

I've finally seen The Iron Lady, and unfortunately, it wasn't worth the wait.
Meryl Streep, once again, did a great job, complete with an uncanny likeness and accent as the first ever, and only, to date female Prime Minister Great Britain has ever seen, Margaret Thatcher. And though she was amazing, truly emersed in her role, every action put together with thought and consideration of how the real Margaret would have done, and probably deserved her Golden Globe win last evening, the rest of the film was a total disaster.
The screenplay began in current day, with Margaret as a bumbling old lady suffering from Alzheimer's disease and having hallucinations that her dead husband, Denis (another good performance from Jim Broadbent, though there really is little for him to do) is still alive. Then, through a constant series of flashbacks, none of which are very clear, we see Margaret's climb to power and her sudden, but not unexpected fall from it. For some reason, there are no dates ever put on the screen, instead, they rely on either the characters to state the date or have a newspaper headline with the date upon it, and unfortunately, that just didn't work. And instead of focusing on one important event in her life (and there are tons to pick from), they instead attempt to give an overview of her life, from her meeting Denis to the Falkland Wars and economic crises in Great Britain to her having to resign from the office, but everything is horribly confusing, even for someone who just wrote a paper about Thatcher for one of her college classes (aka me). Had they (the screenwriter) opted to focus on something specific, like say, Margaret's run for Prime Minister, the film would have been fantastic, and Meryl deserved something so much better, because then, she really would have deserved any single award she has been given, or has yet to receive. Grade: B-