Streep Outshines the Fragmented 'Iron Lady'

After Julia Child and Miranda Priestly, Margaret Thatcher is another ideal role for Meryl Streep.

It won’t be long before the bio-pic genre starts to run out of iconic figures from 20^th century Britain to base films around. Already audiences have praised The Queen and The King’s Speech, both of which took home a vast number of honors in 2007 and 2011 respectively. Helen Mirren and Colin Firth brought to cinematic life to Elizabeth II and George VI; now Meryl Streep takes her turn in transporting another figure from the noble halls of government to the big screen as Margaret Thatcher. 

Portraying the only female British prime minister cannot be hailed as a cakewalk for Streep. But that doesn’t mean that she can’t tackle the fierceness of The Iron Lady. After all, Streep can play just about anyone from Julia Child to a staunch nun and even a devil in heels. The Iron Lady looks at bits and pieces of Thatcher’s rise to power, her prime and eventual decline, where Streep portrays the latter two eras of her life.

Eastwood Slows Down with Hoover Bio-Pic

Beneath those layers of makeup, Leonardo DiCaprio emerges as a seasoned J. Edgar Hoover.

Something as simple as a name can trigger certain keywords about a person. Pioneer. Powerful. Controversial. Those three words can describe a number of people, yet one man who innovated untouched crime scenes, fingerprint identification and wiretapping is a perfect fit to that mold. 

Director Clint Eastwood’s J.  Edgar follows the rise and fall of the career and highly debated personal life of J. Edgar Hoover, embodied by the phenomenal presence of Leonardo DiCaprio. DiCaprio is unquestionably the strongest asset of the production, maneuvering between Hoover in his heyday and in his twilight with his one of his most remarkable performances to date.