“…I completely fell in love with Harry Lloyd…” (Meryl
Streep, on seeing The Iron Lady)
I
confess to having missed my opportunity to see Harry Lloyd on the Big Screen at
the end of 2011 and earlier this year. I
simply waited too long to see The Iron
Lady and, in fact, one of my biggest regrets at the moment was haven’t
missed Harry himself at the New York City premiere of the film. (I only found out he was in town the day after the premiere; so much for NYC news
spreading like wildfire. Too often,
there is so much of it that stories get bumped around and pushed aside,
replaced and erased in milliseconds.)
Thus,
writing about The Iron Lady here
isn’t exactly a timely piece—the film isn’t new, although, to me, I just had my
“first look” at it this weekend. But I
did want to spend some time staying true to Lloydalists’ honor to discuss and
evaluate the work of Harry Lloyd, new or not; and perhaps sometime in the
future, reevaluate things we’ve already talked about. Our opinions are always going to be informed
and re-informed by the latest news or our shifting perspectives in general.
Thus, while we and I take a “look back” at The
Iron Lady, a film Harry no doubt made a year ago from now, I offer a
perspective based upon my initial viewing.
I encourage you all to contribute your thoughts, too, in the comments
below.
While
Meryl Streep won yet another Academy Award (2012) for her role as Britain’s
former Prime Minister, who held the office longer than any other PM in the 20th
Century, Margaret Roberts Thatcher (1979-1990)—the eponymous figure of The Iron Lady—and while the film picked up
yet another Oscar for Best Make-Up (not to mention BAFTAs for Streep and the
Make-Up department as well, and a flurry of other awards), I’m less concerned
with the commercial or critical success of this film. Those who panned the film as inaccurate or
subpar aren’t non-existent, either. But
we’re not here to dwell too much on outside reactions. Such things are not so much Lloydalists’
intentions—we’re here to discuss craft and artistry, skill and accomplishments
(or even some mishaps along the road to success).
Therefore,
I won’t spend time here debating the merits or pitfalls of The Iron Lady itself—I enjoyed it quite a bit, though the pacing
needed work, and thought that the three greatest contributors to the beauty of
the film were the collaborative efforts of all the actors involved, the director,
and the cinematographer. I do, of
course, want to respond to Harry’s role in the film, his acting, and some of
his own thoughts about it, or others’ thoughts about his work in Phyllida
Lloyd’s picture.
In
a second, continuing blog entry, we’ll turn more towards Harry’s process in
approaching his role in the film, so stay tuned for Part II!
The Backstory
First,
I’d like to set the scene a bit for those who are unfamiliar with Margaret
Thatcher (Or “M. T.,” as her husband calls her in the picture). She was Britain’s first female Prime Minister
and originally Margaret Roberts, daughter of a grocer (Alfred Roberts, played
by Iain Glen—yes, the same actor who is Harry Lloyd’s Game of Thrones dragon-egg-blocking “nemesis” co-star plays
father-in-law to him here, although they have no scenes together). Margaret worked her way up the political
ladder while courting and marrying wealthy businessman Denis Thatcher (played
Harry and, when older Jim Broadbent in the film). She aims for being leader of her conservative
party but supportive colleagues help pave her way towards the position of Prime
Minister, but not without a few The
King’s Speech-esque “makeovers,” that included a new coif and a lowered,
less-screechy voice. Young Margaret is
played with the powerful poignancy of Alexandra Roach, who is so believable, in
her made-up form, as a young Meryl Streep that she could almost be sisters to
Streep’s own two acting daughters. After
eleven years in her powerful position—after overseeing promising and
controversial events in England, from victorious endeavors to brutal riots in
the streets; after playing pals with U.S. President Regan, taking strict
actions against Argentina’s take-over of the Falkland Islands, hand-writing
letters to the families of British soldiers lost for the cause, and seeing the
Berlin Wall come down—she finally stepped down from office. Her twin children grown and distant from her,
her husband having died from cancer, Margaret Thatcher’s final years (as the
film ends) are spent almost reclusively and prison-like, kept under lock and
key in an oversized house with no company and too many relics of the past that
need exorcising. If the film’s opening sequence is any tell-tale indicator of
the overall goal of the film, it’s this: that Margaret Thatcher was and still
is, like anyone else, a human being with basic needs and a desire for freedom
and independence. And that she took her
personal background with her everywhere she went: how often does the obsession
with the price of groceries plague the film?
Too many to count. We all have
emotional baggage, even women strong as iron.
The
film itself, a biopic, is not as political as may be suggested. Director Phyllida Lloyd (no relation to Harry
that I’m aware of) has even called the film less a political movie and more a
William Shakespeare story a la King Lear
one with elements of “a tragic opera” recalling her theatre background (qtd. in
Warburton). Thatcher’s reported cold-blooded ruthlessness is glossed over on
several occasions—she drives off to work as her children run after her car,
begging her to look at their drawings; she humiliates her party’s President and
right-hand-man Geoffrey Howe (played by Anthony Stewart Head) in the middle of
a meeting; she continues to make brash decisions rooted in her own beliefs
rather than listen to the counsel of others; it takes her days to realize that
her bitter and neglected husband has taken off for South Africa to cool
down. But the film does a decent job of
suggesting that there was controversy there, that Margaret’s stubbornness and,
perhaps, even selfishness, led her to suffer many losses.
Mostly,
though, this picture focuses on the evolution of a poor grocer’s daughter who,
having survived World War II, worked way her young years in her father’s shop,
suffered neglect by a detached mother, and having spent times listening to her
political-father’s rallying speeches in her off-time while her peers were off
indulging in the latest fashions or at the movies, was out to prove to others
and herself—and many, many doubters, particularly men—that she could hold office
in Parliament and make a significant contribution to her country. Meanwhile, The Iron Lady is also a love-story and a letting-go story. The film is told non-linearly, through
flashbacks of the aged Margaret (a heavily-made-up Meryl Streep whose movements
as a hunched, stiff-legged old lady is more convincing than the real-deal), who
hallucinates about her late husband (Broadbent) and reminisces, too, through
home videos, photos, and déjà-vu moments, about her youthful years (as Roach) with
young Denis (Lloyd). Throughout the
movie, Margaret attempts to clear out her husband’s things and donate them to
Oxfam, but his clothing and shoes consume her. Helping his presence to
seemingly shape itself out of the air.
One moment, she’s turning on every device in the house—TV, radios,
blenders, mixers—to drown out his voice and, thus, stop “seeing” him. The next, she’s calling him to her, begging
him to come back. Her love-hate
relationships with the delusions of Denis are mimicry of her real-life
relationship with him, one of ups and downs, often catalyzed by the clash of
the headstrong woman and the prankster husband, she too sensible for her own
good and he too much like Charlie Chaplin.
She struggles to be independent but to accept love; he struggles to keep
her happy and himself humorous and natural—and somehow, it works, despite the
issues along the way.
Over
all, The Iron Lady is a “good-bye”
picture, an older woman waving back at her past-life, her past-love, and her
past-self. To say that it’s not sad,
perhaps a tad depressing, is a lie. It’s
richly done, well-made, and polished in its “period” turns throughout. This movie doesn’t try to be stuffy,
pretentious, or too stripped-bare and emotional: it simply is. As I’ve said, it thrives on the shared
efforts of a richly talented cast and the filmmaking crew who managed to
capture every nuance on film. Even with
a sometimes too-quick script (the movie is only one hour and 45 minutes in
length) that does not do justice to Thatcher’s career nor the overall span of
the film’s timetable, the movie succeeds in its characterizations of the human
spirit, which is what matters most. I
dare say that one of the reasons for a rather rushed and awkward ending is that
Thatcher (born in 1925) is still alive and, thus, there’s no real “capstone”
way to end her story. Not yet, anyway.
A Defining Presence, More than a Voice: Harry
Lloyd as the Young Denis Thatcher
In
real life, Denis Thatcher, ten years Margaret’s senior, had been married (to another
Margaret!) and divorced before he met the future Prime Minister. Thatcher and his first wife had married
during World War II and did not live together; he was away too often, a
decorated soldier. When he returned from
the war, he learned his wife had met someone else and, thus, the marriage came
to an end.
None
of Denis’ backstory are even suggested in The
Iron Lady, and it doesn’t seem that his past as a war hero or a divorced
man have any impression on young Margaret Roberts, his second wife. He is introduced only as a successful
businessman and because Lloyd, 27 or 28 when he made The Iron Lady, looks so young as it is, it would have seemed
strange to have introduced him as someone with the kind of backstory mentioned
above. Yet, Harry Lloyd didn’t limit his
research to only those moments in Denis’ life necessary for depicting in the
film. Instead, “I found out all about his
early life and his first marriage,” Harry has said (in Hubert), suggesting that
although these points are not brought up in the film, Harry kept them in mind
as he crafted his characterization around these milestones and
character-effecting experiences.
Instead,
we first catch a glimpse of Harry in a photograph on Meryl Streep’s vanity,
nearly out of the range of the camera.
It’s a premonition of what’s to come. Soon after, her daughter Carol
(Olivia Colman) is leading her downstairs to a dinner party and the gathering
reminds her of the evening she first met Denis.
Now,
15.5 minutes into The Iron Lady, we
get to see Harry Lloyd in the flesh, and the look any Lloydalist gives him when
they first stumble upon him on the other side of Margaret’s opened door is akin
to the same look he gives her when this strange new blonde with a distinctive
air about her walks in. It’s February of
1949, and she’s just been asked to become the Conservative candidate for the
Dartford Conservative Association in Kent. A formal dinner is held, and there
was Denis Thatcher, a successful businessman who seemed to be the only
political person in the room of men and some women able to keep his mouth shut
and to recognize what a rare thing was this Miss Margaret Roberts, a sparkly
young firecracker and daughter of a political grocer.
Denis Thatcher (Harry Lloyd) lays eyes
on Margaret Roberts, across the room and out of shot, for the first time.
Image Source: The Iron Lady (2011), ©Twentieth-Century Fox / Film 4 / UK Film
Council
Margaret is seated next to Denis, who notices her confusion at the elaborate array of silverware fanned out before her. (Of course, maybe she’s just confused by the Jell-O-egg-shaped “food” on her plate and is trying to find a polite way of slipping it into a napkin, unnoticed.) “Start on the outside—work your way in”: these are his first words to the Miss Roberts, and his first in the film. The words, intentionally or not, already position Harry’s character as an essential portion of the film’s narrative arc. His words are a telling metaphor for the way in which Margaret Thatcher would go on to infiltrate society and parliament, starting as an outsider and working her way into the thick of things—sometimes things over her head. And he would be there at her side, as he is now (even if only in her mind’s hallucinatory eye).
It’s
quite some time before Harry gets another line—or even a word—in The Iron Lady, but his presence is felt
quite steadily for at least the first half of the film, and if he’s silent more
often than not, when he does speak, he has some gripping and sweet things to
say. Mostly, though, Lloyd uses his
facial characteristics and physical mannerisms to his advantage. We read an alternative version of the misunderstood
Margaret through watching Denis’ reaction to her at this dinner party; thus, a
lot of weight is put on Harry Lloyd. He has to make us like Margaret and align
with her because we must be as charmed as he is by her. By transference, he also has to win us over.
But
the rest of the room at this dinner party is as stuffed with snooty politicians
and their wives as it is obnoxiously gross food. Harry Lloyd’s young Denis, a seeming outsider
at this party, is aligned with us, the audience, who is learning about this
young political debutante Margaret for the first time. We haven’t seen her before as an up-and-comer
in a man’s world. We don’t know what to
expect, and neither does he. He gives the (unaware) Margaret a rather telling
stare as he watches her respond to her ready admittance that, yes, she did work in the family’s grocery.
When
someone remarks wryly that her having worked in the family business of a
grocer’s store is a good start for parliament—a kind of a backslap
compliment—she responds assertively, “That, and a degree from Oxford.” She’s not so much boastful as she is
matter-of-fact, and Harry sits back and smirks charmingly with half his face. This
is not the same half-smirk that is uber-creepy in his two Doctor Who episodes (2007); nor that as Viserys Targaryen in Game of Thrones from 2011, the same year
as The Iron Lady. Of the shift from a golden-crowned (I use the
term loosely; see “A Golden Crown,” if you haven’t already, for an
explanation), Harry explains, “this is quite a divergence from that” (qtd. in
Slotek). In fact, his ability to take the same basic expression and morph it
slightly so that it is either creepy or charming is great testament to his
facility with his craft and his working-awareness of his body’s and face’s
capabilities. And the whole way through the scene, as his smile is shifting and
changing just on that right side of his face, crinkling up his eyes a bit, he
reaches fluidly for a cocktail glass and sips at it, as if to disguise his
amused look—yet the transparent glass and liquid, not to mention those characteristic
Lloyd smile-creases—are unable to be concealed.
Harry’s Denis tries not-so-well to hide
his amusement at the unusual Miss Roberts’ responses to the other politicians’
questions at diner.
Images Source: The Iron Lady (2011), ©Twentieth-Century Fox / Film 4 / UK Film
Council
Still
unaware, Alexandra Roach’s plucky Margaret continues, “A man may call it
‘fiscal responsibility’; a woman…would call it ‘good housekeeping.’” He’s still
watching her at this point, his face a little more relaxed. We, the audience, become more relaxed. He’s only said that one line about the
silverware order thus far and yet he seems a louder, more interesting dinner
companion to the roasting bores who seem there to criticize their new colleague
rather than allow her due time to prove herself.
But
just when Denis seems to have blended so seamlessly into the “audience” of the
drama at the table, just as it seems he is as outside the conversation as are
we, he loses it and lets out an audible, close-mouthed chuckle when Margaret
cuts in “or woman!” to correct one politician talking about the “man” who can
“sort out” England’s economic problems.
Instantly, we know that this young man is charmed by cheek and
challenge, his interest is piqued from the moment he’s seen Margaret, and we—as
viewers—are redrawn to her because now we’re eager to know how her relationship
with this mysterious young man we know nothing about may bring.
It
is Harry’s little laugh that, though quiet, ends the political discussion. He
gives her a bemused head-tilt—as if to say, “well, why not?” when she is
encouraged to leave: “Miss Roberts, why don’t you join the ladies?” The man
stand as the women get up after dinner to consort themselves elsewhere, while
the men stay in the dining room (and badmouth Margaret, who can hear them
through the door).
As a result, there is a clear build-up
in The Iron Lady to this relationship
with him, the relationship between him and Margaret and the one between him and
the audience and our engagement with him.
Harry has the tedious job of matching characteristics, too, with the cheeky
older Denis, as played by Jim Broadbent, we have already met. He needs to show
a version of that same character, younger and perhaps less exaggerative-ly “set
in his ways,” so to speak, yet still with a youthful spark.
This
initial scene with Harry Lloyd and meeting between Margaret and Denis is
explained well by Harry himself. Denis,
in Harry’s opinion, is “not scared of strong women, in the way some people are
of an older generation” and so, unlike the older crowd at dinner, he isn’t
put-off by this young blood who also “appeals to his sense of mischief” (qtd.
in Hubert). Denis also “appreciates
people standing up for what they can believe in, and he sees the ridiculousness
of the situation—this young girl surrounded by these old fogies. It appeals to
his sense of humor. It's a breath of fresh air” (Lloyd, in Hubert). When asked
if Denis was therefore a progressive thinker for the time, and also one very
content to take “a back seat, staying out of her [Margaret’s] way” (Hubert),
Lloyd says yes and that Denis “didn’t try to turn her into anything for his own
ends” (qtd. in Hubert). Denis is
disinterested in being more than just the successful businessman with a passion
for politics but not for being in them: “He was always—the film shows later on
how aggravating it can be—aware of, ‘You do what you want to do, M. T. I'll be
there.’ There was this real mutual respect, which was a great foundation”
(Lloyd, in Hubert).
Young
Denis, truth be told and in Harry’s opinion, is “inspired by a woman who didn’t
take no for an answer” (Lloyd, in Slotek).
Harry
also has the pressure of making a very-condensed on-screen courtship between
Denis and Margaret (the couple married in late 1951) seem effective. He has to work, with Alexandra Roach, in
shaping a believable romance in only a few minutes, a romance that moves from
just-met to dating to engaged to married-with-children. Heather Warburton calls the relationship
between Roach’s and Lloyd’s Margaret and Denis “a delightful courtship of a
marriage that evolved out of shared values and a seriousness of purpose”
(Warburton). More often than not, as
viewers of The Iron Lady, we have to
interpret this situation by reading between the lines (or the pregnant pauses or
laugh lines in many cases), and once again, the fine-acting on behalf of the
film’s cast certainly helps.
The
“courtship” is a remarkably lovely scene, one of which Elliot Davis (director
of photography) should be immensely proud.
It is poetic, sweet, and truly underscoring of the
mischievous-meets-practical match between Denis and Margaret. There’s one long shot of them at the theatre
seeing Norma. They don’t speak, but look at the show below
(we never see it; we must read the performance’s agreeability on their faces)
or at one another. He holds out his hand
between them and in it is a pink toy mouse with a wiry white tail. Margaret barely knows how to react; she tries
to take it, he pulls his hand back. The camera
is focused solely on the actors’ hands, no faces; they are forced to act
strictly through hand-language, which must look realistic. Then, he lets her take it and place it down
on the Norma booklet between
them. It seems a substitute for public
display of affection—his offering of a playful gift and her acceptance of it.
Denis’ playful gift of a toy mouse while
at the theatre, and Margaret’s (Alexandra Roach’s) acceptance of it, however apprehensively
and briefly, serves as an act of intimacy in a film otherwise devoid of many
such moments. That Margaret only places
the mouse on the theatre booklet rather than take it into her own hand
underscores her trepidation in accepting such kindness, as well as her resistance
to dependence.
Image Source: The Iron Lady (2011), ©Twentieth-Century Fox / Film 4 / UK Film
Council
The
brilliance of the scene culminates when the camera shifts angles away from
their hands and moves back to a long-shot, where the couple sit in the balcony.
His cheeky joy is quite noticeable and always dancing, in slight shifts and
changes, on his face—note the one moment where he arches his right eyebrow just
above the rim of his spectacles, even though he’s looking forward (away from
the camera, to the right). Harry is very
well-aware of how to use his mannerisms and keep in character, consistently in
the moment at all times, and here, it’s no exception. In fact, such attention to his ability to
convey feeling with facial and physical movements, slight as they may be, are
telltale even in his very first episode of Robin
Hood (2006). In that show, too,
Harry’s Will Scarlett is more a presence than a voice, a character whose
physicality connects with audiences on a human, emotional level that only a
sharp camera operator is capable of capturing.
Our
next sweep back to Harry as young Denis Thatcher comes following Margaret’s
defeat in a 1950 election. In contrast
to her obvious disappointment—she looks like someone died—comes the half-skipping,
half-strutting Denis, brown suit and matching hat adorning his lanky
figure. His thick round glasses, smile
lines about the mouth, and chipper look seem staples. Rather than adjusting his attitude to suit
hers, as so many others rush to do in order to offer consolation and sympathy,
he complements her sadness by negating it. His presence brings with it laughter
in his throat, a hand poised on his hip to create a triangulation with the
elbow and arm sticking out. It’s a fine
moment for Harry Lloyd in terms of physical comedy and acting, one you could
imagine Cary Grant pulling off in a 1940s screwball comedy. A viewer could even imagine Harry’s Denis saying,
as Cary Grant does to the depressed Audrey Hepburn in Stanley Donen’s 1963 picture
Charade, “How about making me vice
president in charge of cheering you up?”
It’s also a presence—comedic yet sobering—consistent with Margaret’s
image of Denis (Broadbent) earlier, older and pretending to be a Charlie
Chaplin-esque figure, doing the signature walk of the silent star and toying
with his hat, yet letting her have it when she mismanaged her priorities.
At
this point, we’re twenty-four minutes into the film and Harry still has not
spoken a line aside from doing his best aforementioned Miss Manners
impersonation, giving advice about the proper use of silverware. He’s been all looks and stifled laughs thus
far. He’s there for his bodily
presence to help establish a character and the character responding to him. There is a build-up to his voice, as it resonates
in Margaret’s mind and throughout the picture, just as there is a build-up of a
life throughout The Iron Lady, a life
of gradual stages, of shape-shifting manifestations, of un-expectancies,
delights, and disappointments.
Harry
went into the role with a specific idea of what the relationship between the
two young Thatchers should be. “What I
think is brilliant about their relationship is that neither of them try to do
each other’s jobs,” Lloyd says; “they had their own space; it was a very
functional relationship,” and “they were a great team” (in “The Iron Lady NY Premiere”). The challenge is to showcase how teamwork and
complementariness is established mostly through silence, as it goes in this
picture, anyway.
Then,
finally, he says a word, long and drawn out and echoing through the now-vacant campaign
headquarters corridors: “E-A-T.” He’s
talking to dour-faced 24-year-old Margaret, who’s just lost her chance to be a
parliament member as if he’s a father pushing porridge in front of a finicky
four-year-old. When he says that, and we see him face-on, his mouth wide open,
we see the gap-toothed grin (fake teeth for Harry, but they don’t seem to hinder
his confidence), which is a clear marker of his role as comedian cheerer-upper.
Next,
they’re sitting at a table with his take-along lunch between them, although she
doesn’t seem to have touched a bite. He
tucks in naturally, as if his actions will somehow encourage her to snap out of
her funk and get on with it. But she
continues dwelling on her political “disaster” (rightly so—she’s just learned
that moment she’s lost!). His solution
to ending misery seems quite simple: the next thing we know, he’s saying “hang
on,” and digging in his pocket for something. (Not a ring—yet—just a flask of
booze to pour out for the two of them.)
As
the booze gets to flowing, so do his words. “You shaved thousands off the majority, you did splendidly,” he tells his downcast girlfriend, who replies, “not
splendidly enough!” Despite her morose voice, his tone is the uneven lilt of
the calliope, a rollicking anapest of a three-legged horse, all uneven but
finding footing in the absurdist land of humor.
It’s an engaging, if not semi-comical, voice, one that fits well with
his mannerisms, his habits, and his looks.
“Oh,
I see—self-pity!” His serious tone all of a sudden, after her last remark,
seems laden with the telltale traces of one who is set on turning the day
around. In fact, the unsteady surprise
of this voice, which is almost like a mockery of a real, natural human voice,
is all a rouse in this film. Like with
Broadbent’s words as the older version, Denis’ tone here is always to function
as a sort of nagging reminder of Margaret’s own truths, those she should know
but do not need.
But
as the younger version of Denis, Harry Lloyd has the stress of paving the road
for such a larger role. In flashback
moments like this, he gives Margaret—and us—sufficient evidence and reason as
to why she fell in love with this man.
Why they are complementary. Why
they work, even when they don’t.
Here’s
something that I’ve always admired about Harry Lloyd: he’s not concerned with
being pretty or suave or good-looking.
Look at the faces he makes while talking to Alexandra’s young Margaret
during this post-campaign-loss lunch.
Throughout the scene, Harry is fussing with the props on the tables (but
not distractingly so; note how every action is realistic and necessary, serving
a purpose). Look at the
less-than-attractive yet realistic way in which he cleans the insides of his
mouth, scraping his gums and teeth as he licks them over with his tongue (we
can see his left-cheek protruding). He
is totally believable as one who has just eaten, the way he goes about
“uncluttering” his mouth and throat, getting ready to swing back into
conversation. There is no “I’m-on-camera-so-I’d-better-get-this-right”
tension between him or Alexandra Roach.
The fourth wall feels broken (more on this in the next blog entry, Part
II).
In
fact, a lot of effort went in to getting that mouth (the entire Denis Thatcher
mouth-mannerisms—not just in this one scene) and those facial characterizations
right. Harry admits that, at some
points, he was absolutely terrified, worrying, “‘I’ve got the wrong-shaped
mouth, that thing he does! I can’t do it, it’s wrong” (qtd. in Warburton). Then, on top of this, he tried to mimic Broadbent’s
way of doing it, so he “felt I had lots of hoops to jump through” (Lloyd, in
Warburton). In jumping through those
hoops, Harry Lloyd proved a fine acrobat, one even able to use some slips and
slides of his physicality to good effect.
Soon
after in this same post-campaign-loss scene, Denis tells Margaret that she
needs “to learn to play the game a little.”
It’s the first time he’s seemed to be practical, yet he’s still
go-with-the-flow in tone. She asks him
about “the game,” and begins to protest when he brings up her past as a
grocer’s daughter. (It’s really amazing
how much this one facet of her past-life haunts her; the film could easily have
been called The Grocer’s Daughter.) He continues, unfettered, still maintaining
his typical tone: “But if you become the wife of a moderately-successful
businessman, you’d get to Parliament.
And I’d get to be the happiest man in…well…wherever they select you.”
Yes,
folks—it’s a proposal! She’s shocked! We, of course, are not—we knew that Miss
Margaret Roberts had to become Margaret Thatcher at some point, after all.
He
stares at her silently for a few minutes, then takes the cup out of her hand,
takes her hand in his, and, after a pregnant pause, he is serious for the first
time so far. Like with the previously
discussed “mouse-in-the-hand” theatre scene, The Iron Lady seems to rely on such hand-holding moments between
the pair as the most intimate acts of the picture. Earlier, when Margaret tells her parents she’s
gotten into Oxford, her father is ecstatic; her mother won’t hug or even shake
her hand because her hands are wet. In a
film like this one devoid of much human contact and even sexuality, these
hand-holding moments, dependent mostly on Lloyd and Roach, as well as the dance
sequences they have throughout the film’s duration, become our only glimpse of
a soft, human, non-iron lady.
What
comes next is one of the loveliest, most striking moments of The Iron Lady (although, maybe I’m
partial to it, due to Harry’s presence and involvement).
When
he says, “Margaret, will you marry me?” in his deepest and clearest,
straightforwardly voice yet, we are already leaping up to say “yes” ourselves. She is heaving and sobbing a bit and he leans
in, over the table more—“Well?” It
sounds like “Ww-eLL,” in his bell-curved echo of froggy-voiced sound. The humor and happiness is back, albeit
subtly. That voice is imbued with it, intractably.
When
filming scenes with the younger Denis (Harry), Alexandra Roach reflected on
Margaret’s youth: “she didn’t really have any friends ever growing up. She was such an earnest, serious young woman…alone
a lot of the time” (in Wrigley). After having had no friends at Oxford, the
future Prime Minister was, perhaps, desperate to connect. “When she met
[Denis],” Roach shares, “she found a rock” (in Wrigley). What is more, Roach “loved
filming those scenes just because it showed a softer side of her, of what she’s
like” with Denis, and how her relationship with him is “really fascinating. He
was so supportive to her, was behind her 100%. If she didn’t have him then you
wonder, would she have been alone all her life? He was so very important. I
loved that bit of the film” (Roach, qtd. in Wrigley). It’s almost as if Roach and Lloyd planned
their responses about their respective roles, for Harry’s remarks about the
younger version of Denis Thatcher complement Alexandra’s well.
He describes his character as having an “irrepressible sense of fun and humor, but he is a rock. He does get it; he's there for her when he needs to be. He's extraordinarily loyal” (Lloyd, in Hubert). Perhaps the exaggerated voice is intentional. After all, The Iron Lady is about Margaret Thatcher, and aligns itself with her perspective. We don’t see Denis without his Margaret because “it’s a very subjective portrayal of her life and their relationship” (Lloyd, in Hubert). And perhaps the humor and absurdity is emphasized because, as Harry wisely suggests, “I suppose the things you remember about someone who has died are the funny moments. Those are the ones that stand out” (qtd. in Hubert).
Back
to the campaign-headquarters scene, though: then he kisses her hand sweetly,
drawing it to him. It is so
anti-Viserys! He’s still kissing her
hand when she says “yes,” and he lifts his eyes only, and there’s a light there,
one of those kinds of reflection-on-water lights that is impossible to fake.
He
goes in to kiss her and she stops him; “What?” he says, in that same bell-curved
voice, clumsy and uncouth but somehow awkwardly alluring. She goes on to explain how “I love you so
much, but, I will never be one of those women, Denis, who stays silent and
pretty on the arm of her husband. Or, remote and alone in the kitchen.” Alexandra’s acting is impeccable, firm, and
well-matched with Harry’s. At this
point, the camera is on him and he looks all puckered, from forehead to lip, in
thought and affection, so touched by her words and declarations.
“I
cannot die washing up a teacup,” she tells him (later, aging-Margaret Meryl
will wash a teacup herself, though certainly not dying, considering Thatcher’s
still around), “I mean it,” after proclaiming that “one’s life must
matter.” He becomes softer-faced, yet no
less touched. He is brimming with more
love for her bold, brave, honest words now than ever before. “Say you understand,” she demands. He leans forward quickly, without missing a
beat, and says the most beautiful line of the film: “that’s why I want to marry
you, my dear.”
I
can’t resist noting that, in general, the shift of his eyebrows and creased
brow in this film is classic Harry Lloyd mannerisms. And he’s mastered the countenance-acting even
more over time. Anyone else may look
cheap or comical, but Lloyd’s engaging, boy-next-door quality overcomes the
foppishness or any intentional faults that may be mistaken for bad acting and
becomes endearing. Somehow, he avoids
the outlandishness of pantomime, and I daresay he succeeds because he has the
natural charisma and charm to carry it out.
And
then they kiss for the first time.
Newly-engaged and sealing the deal with
a kiss: the soon-to-be Power-Couple of Mr. and Mrs. Denis Thatcher.
Image Source: The Iron Lady (2011), ©Twentieth-Century Fox / Film 4 / UK Film
Council
And
then they both start giggling at one another when someone comes in, as they’re
kissing.
Then
he moves the cups on the table around, makes space, and declares to her like a
doting father once more, “now EAT.”
Harry slips right back into character with ease, without any awkward
hesitation or seeming need for the director to yell “cut! Take it from the top!” There are tears in his eyes as he looks at
her, as she eats. It’s such a beautiful
moment, as if the acceptance of his food is her eating heartily from what he
will always offer her—not just food, but comfort, a home, a family, a new
life. It’s a metaphorical feasting,
celebratory and symbolically yoking the two.
Young Denis Thatcher (Lloyd) and Young
Margaret Roberts (Roach) during the engagement scene between the pair.
Image Source: Promotional for The Iron Lady (2011), ©Twentieth-Century
Fox / Film 4 / UK Film Council
Next, the film cuts to a shot of their legs and feet together (it’s reminiscent of a remarkable scene from the finale of Ernst Lubitsch’s 1940 classic The Shop Around the Corner); the camera pans up, and they dance together. We see the ring on her finger now (how did that get there? That sneaky Denis! He must have had more than a flask in his pocket!). His right hand crawls around her waist; her left one slides up his shoulder. The camera does a dance of its own, a vertical sliding until we see their touching faces—yet another brief act of intimacy that seems mostly reserved for the young version of the power-couple. Then, before long, they’re gliding around the empty campaign room, a large building littered with papers, joy never ceasing on their faces, Harry maintaining his bespectacled, bemused look of a grown man with a little boy’s face and the man-boy voice.
After
some Meryl Streep and Jim Broadbent moments, it isn’t long before the older
Margaret is back into retrogressive mode again, this time catalyzed by a 1957
home video of the now-married-with-fraternal-twins Carol and Mark (Eloise Webb,
Alexander Beardsley) on a beach vacation in Cornwall. Harry’s Denis is in rolled blue jeans and a
yellow sweater as he golfs and frolics. As one writer has called Mr. Thatcher, he was
“a goofball - a guy obsessed with golf” (Hubert): Harry is wonderfully credible
as such a figure. The entire family is jovial—footloose and fancy-free. It will be the only time we see the family so
enraptured with one another’s company, so loving and unadulterated, so
unconsumed by an outer-world. Ironically,
the far-gone scene is as removed on the screen before Margaret as it is us, the
film viewer: her on past, pre-Parliament life may as well be a fictional film
with characters she cannot remember. Any
Harry Lloyd fan will be completely charmed by this home video, especially when
he, the videographer, turns the camera on himself; or when he teaches Margaret
how to swing a club (another means of intimacy); or when Margaret films him at
the water’s edge with the children.
Speaking of children, (correct me if I’m
wrong, Lloydalists), I do believe that this is the first time that Harry Lloyd
has played a father (and to twins!) for a movie or television role. It also is
the first time he’s playing a real-life historical figure (although, arguably,
his Will Scarlett from Robin Hood may
have been at least loosely-based on an actual figure or an amalgamation of
several). Could this foray into
fatherhood be a good indication that, yes, Harry’s getting older, but that
means he’s riper for taking meatier parts, roles that will not relegate him to
juvenile status or “boyfriend” behaviors.
He can play these, of course; but he can also play the serious lover,
the wealthy businessman and politician, the comic, and the father-figure. After all, he is all of these in The Iron Lady.
The
final full-moment of Harry’s presence in the film is another flashback scene
when Margaret has won the election and secured a seat in Parliament. The children are ecstatic for their mother,
leaping in the driveway and climbing on the car. He is standing near their home’s doorway,
smiling proudly at them and at Margaret.
She seems less-happy than them—perhaps nervous at what her own future
holds—and, trying to get back to business (as usual), smacks him lightly with a
cloth to get him into the house. He
obliges without a word of contrariness.
Apparently, it’s time for dinner, and he’s not helping to get the kids
inside, either. He looks pleasantly delighted—as
we’d expect Denis, as depicted in the film so far, too be.
What
I’ve outlined above marks the entirety of Harry’s general presence in the film.
He returns again via a photograph, as well as selected snippets (not long
vignettes, like the other flashbacks), as her life continues unraveling and she
tries to send her hallucinations away. Significantly,
when Meryl’s aged-Margaret waltzes with a hallucination of Broadbent’s older
Denis, the younger version of the couple, Alexandra and Harry, begin waltzing
through the house, too, like phantoms from the past. It’s a very sad reminder of what has gone,
and who has been lost.
This
scene also marks a huge turning point for the film’s main star—although it may
not be noticeable on screen. When Meryl Streep saw Harry and Alex dancing
through the dining room in the imagined moment, as she and the (also imagined) older
Denis look on, she says,
I was completely
overcome. I just broke down (laughs). Because it was like actually seeing your
life flash before your eyes. I mean, I had been so immersed in my age and
debility and then to see this glorious couple come through and free… and that
music! Phyllida played it right through and they did the whole thing. You only
see a flash of it in the picture. It did anchor something emotional for me that
was important, very important. And then of course when I saw the movie I
completely fell in love with Harry Lloyd, and could see why she did too
(laughs)! (Streep, qtd. in Warburton)
If
someone as jaw-droppingly marvelous as Meryl Streep, who’s seen and worked with
just about everyone, is falling in love with Harry Lloyd, it’s only a matter of
time before everyone else—and not just the Lloydalists—do, too.
First dance as an engaged couple:
happier days for Denis and Margaret.
Image Source: The Iron Lady (2011), ©Twentieth-Century Fox / Film 4 / UK Film
Council
Final Thoughts and Responses to The Iron Lady
Most
viewers will come to The Iron Lady to
watch Meryl Streep’s performance, or because they’re history buffs who go in
for this kind of biopic drama, or because (as some cinephiles have joked), they
were misled into thinking that this was the latest installment of the Iron Man franchise. But Harry Lloyd’s performance, quite in-line
with that of the rest of the cast, is stellar.
For the few but felt moments he is on screen, he is performing not only
as an actor but as a narrator for the story, using his body and physical
presence to help say in images what cannot be said in words (there are time
constraints on a movie, after all). He
is so expressive that he could have been an actor of the silent period (a topic
that, I think, I may have to continue at another time). As we Lloydalists have gathered from observing
his other roles, which is why we are Lloydalists in the first place, Harry
really throws himself into everything he does—bodily, heartily, and
vocally. He is antithesis of the lazy
actor, and he makes every awkward syllable and eyebrow-raise convey a specific
emotion or element of exposition that more seasoned or older actors have yet to
learn.
In
Interview Magazine¸ Craig Hubert
begins a piece on Harry with an “amen”-inducing first paragraph worth citing
here verbatim:
While Meryl
Streep is the face out front in The Iron
Lady, the center around which everything spins, the film wouldn't work
without its stellar supporting cast. Harry Lloyd, who plays the young version
of Denis Thatcher, eventual husband of future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,
brings charm and wit to the role of a ghost, a fading memory in the mind of a
woman at the end of her life. Lloyd's performance, even as Jim Broadbent takes
over the character in the later years, lingers on. (Hubert)
Harry
really is playing a ghost in this
film: the final moment I’ve mentioned a few paragraphs above when we see him
dancing through the Thatcher house with the young Margaret, while the “ghost”
(figment of Margaret’s imagination) of Broadbent’s older Denis and Meryl
Streep’s aged M. T. look on, reasserts the eeriness of the story, the haunting
of the past that weighs so heavily on anybody.
We can be spirits to ourselves, The
Iron Lady suggests: after all, why is Thatcher seeing the ghost of her
youth, too?
Somehow,
though, despite his shadowy vapors left trailing throughout the winds of The Iron Lady’s landscape, Harry Lloyd manages to bring a
flesh-and-blood reality to Denis Thatcher’s young characterization. It is solidness, a humor, and an adoration
that is much-needed in this picture, too. It is the young Lloyd who establishes a vital
intimacy between the budding Thatcher couple that, if missing, would give
Broadbent and Streep’s later depictions of the character very week, if not
tenuous at best, footing. In a rather depressing story, Lloyd’s young Denis is
something beautiful to behold, a vestige of a happy and wonderfully tangible past of feeling
that, due to its fixture in the imagination, can never be wasted.
Harry Lloyd, as Denis Thatcher, had his
first chance to play Dad, and to twins Mark and Carol. Here, the family (with Margaret behind the video
camera) vacations in 1957 in Cornwall.
Image Source: The Iron Lady (2011), ©Twentieth-Century Fox / Film 4 / UK Film
Council
Works Cited
& Referenced
Charade. Dir. Stanley Donen. Perf. Cary Grant,
Audrey Hepburn, and Walter Matthau. Universal Pictures/Stanley Donen Films. 1963.
Film.
“A Golden Crown.”
Dir. Daniel Minahan. Perf. Harry Lloyd and Jason Momoa. Game of Thrones Season 1 Episode 6. HBO. 22 May 2011. TV Episode.
Hubert, Craig. “Thatcher’s
Match: Harry Lloyd on The Irony Lady.”
Interview Magazine. Interviewmagazine.com.
2011. Web 7 July 2012. <http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/harry-lloyd-the-iron-lady/#page2>.
The Iron Lady. Dir. Phyllida Lloyd. Perf. Meryl
Streep, Jim Broadbent, et al. Twentieth-Century Fox / Film 4 / UK Film Council.
2011. Film.
“The Iron Lady
(2011).” The Internet Movie Database. IMDB.com.
Web. 7 July 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1007029/combined>.
“The Iron Lady New York Premiere—Harry
Lloyd.” [video interview] TrailerAddict.com.
13 Dec. 2012. Web 7 July 2012.
<http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/the-iron-lady/new-york-premiere-harry-lloyd>.
Slotek, Jim.
“Lloyd Explores Thatcher Hubby Role.” Torontosun.com.
13 Jan. 2012. Web. 7 July 2012. <http://www.torontosun.com/2012/01/13/lloyd-explores-thatcher-hubby-role>.
Warburton,
Heather. “Meryl Streep, Director Phyllida Lloyd, Screenwriter Abi Morgan, and
Harry Lloyd Talk The Iron Lady.” Collider.com. 11 Jan. 2012. Web. 5 July
2012. <http://collider.com/meryl-streep-the-iron-lady-interview/134952/>.
Wrigley, Tish,
with Alexandra Roach. “Another Thing I Wanted to Tell You: Alexandra Roach on The Iron Lady.” AnOther Magazine. Anothermag.com. 6 Jan. 2012. Web. 8 July
2012. <http://www.anothermag.com/current/view/1668/Alexandra_Roach_on_The_Iron_
Lady>.
~Written & Posted by C~
No comments:
Post a Comment