PARADISE LOST (THE IRON LADY)

Orson Welles once remarked: "Almost all serious stories in the world are stories of failure with a death in it. But there is more lost paradise in them than defeat."

Welles could have been talking about any Shakespearian tragedy or, indeed, his own masterful creation, Charles Foster Kane.

But it is a quote which also looms large over 'The Iron Lady', Phyllida Lloyd's eagerly anticipated big screen examination of the life of Margaret Thatcher.

Death casts a grim shadow over Lloyd's odd concoction but not in the way death stalks 'King Lear', or 'Citizen Kane'.

For in this movie, Margaret Thatcher is very much alive and struggling with the ravages of old age, grief for her husband Dennis, the onset of dementia and the jumbled memories of an extraordinary life. Law's movie is more interested in the sad and lonely decline before death than in death itself.

But while the movie is morose in tone and look, at the core of 'The Iron Lady' is a remarkably lively and life like performance by Meryl Streep. It is an impersonation so uncanny vocally and physically that you forget at times who is playing Britain's first and only woman Prime Minister.

So commanding is Streep's performance that it it is hard to imagine any other actor - British, American or any other nationality - in the part. Indeed, it is a testament to Streep that she is still turning out a performance of this calibre while many of her male contemporaries - Robert de Niro in particular - are failing to match past glories.

It must be said that Streep's nationality is a great advantage in tackling this role because it is difficult to see how a British or Irish actor would have done so without bringing baggage to the part. 

Let's face it. No-one in these islands, if they are being really honest, is agnostic when it comes to Margaret Thatcher. But as Alex Kane rightly points out on this website, regardless of which camp you fall into on the political spectrum, you have to acknowledge she was a real leader, as opposed to a manager and that she left an indelible mark on British and western society. 

In bringing about change, she was prepared to alienate herself from sections of society with ruthless and (depending on your point of view) questionable decisions which, to this day, makes her one of the most divisive yet fascinating political figures we have ever known.

But her status as a political giant is cemented by this movie. Streep's performance and, especially those sections featuring Alexandra Roach as the young Margaret Thatcher, underline just how remarkable it is that a greengrocer's daughter battled her way through the elitist and chauvinistic ranks of her own party and the predominantly male world of British politics to become Prime Minister.

And yet, despite those plusses, many cinema goers are likely to leave their multiplexes feeIing a little cheated - particularly by Abi Morgan's screenplay.

There are touches of 'Citizen Kane' about the way 'The Iron Lady' uses the decline of its central character to reflect on past glories as well as her downfall. But unlike Welles' brilliant movie, there is no Rosebud, no air of mystery about Margaret Thatcher. Welles created an aura around the fictional, Charles Foster Kane. With a real life biopic, there are just plain, hard facts. 

The movie recalls George Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion' and 'My Fair Lady', especially in the way it deals with social class and, in particular, the vocal transformation of Margaret Thatcher from slightly shrill Education Secretary to serious Tory leadership contender. 

But Morgan's flashback telling of the Margaret Thatcher story suffers because of the fleeting way the biopic deals with major events not just in her career but the history of modern Britain.

Because the movie has to compress a political life into just one and three quarter hours, Law and Morgan sprint like Usain Bolt through the Winter of Discontent, the toppling of Edward Heath, the killing of Airey Neave, the 1979 election, the Falklands War, the hunger strikes, the miner's strike, the Brighton Bombing, the poll tax and the eventual downfall of Mrs T.

In much the same way as Law and Streep's previous collaboration 'Mamma Mia' felt like a poorly packaged version of ABBA's Greatest Hits with truncated versions of great songs, these fleeting glimpses of Thatcher's Greatest Hits are mostly dissatisfying.

Just when the director and her scriptwriter tap into the huge dramatic potential of the Prime Minister weighing up whether or not to sink the Belgrano, they race on to a 'Reeling In The Years' montage of how the war was won and the rise of the Yuppie.

In reality, a life as colourful and as significant as Margaret Thatcher's could only be properly examined by a six or seven part television drama.

Indeed, the film only serves to remind us why two of the three movies featuring Michael Sheen as Tony Blair were so powerful narratively.

Stephen Frears' 'The Deal' was a compelling political drama because it was a detailed examination of a seminal period in Tony Blair's career - the years leading up to Labour's return to power and specifically the power play against Gordon Brown after John Smith's death.

His follow-up, 'The Queen' also worked because it focused on a defining moment for the Monarchy and Blair's relationship with the Establishment - the death of Princess Diana and the Royals' failure to initially grasp public sentiment.

By way of contrast, Richard Loncraine's contribution to the Blair trilogy, 'The Special Relationship' failed because it made the same mistake as Law and Morgan in 'The Iron Lady'. It did not zone in on a critical period in the Blair-Bill Clinton relationship and instead skittled over events which may have had greater resonance if even one of them was examined in isolation.

The other major flaw in Abi Morgan's screenplay for 'The Iron Lady' is the treatment of Dennis Thatcher as some kind of Greek chorus.

Jim Broadbent turns in a typically spirited performance as Dennis but as a narrative device his observations from the dead become more irritating and tiresome as the movie wears on.

There are, however, strong supporting performances from Alexandra Roach as the young Margaret Thatcher, Olivia Colman as Carol Thatcher and, unexpectedly, Anthony Head who impresses as Geoffrey Howe.

'The Iron Lady' will no doubt entice many people - especially those who lived through Margaret Thatcher's Premiership - out of their living rooms. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it is already drawing on its first weekend a demographic of people over 40 into cinemas. 

However the overall impression of Law's movie is that while there's an Oscar worthy performance from Streep at the heart of it, paradise has been lost by Morgan and the director by their misguided narrative approach.