Meryl To Play Maggie: Why?
Unlike this British commentator, I don’t agree that an English actress could do Margaret Thatcher in a movie better than Meryl Streep. But I do wonder why Streep is interested in this project in the first place. She’s already played powerful politically savvy women (the Hillary semi-impersonation in the “Manchurian Candidate” remake), and just because Maggie’s politics are well to the right of Streep’s doesn’t make the role an automatic “stretch.” Thatcher isn’t even good Oscar bait: there’s no heroic death scene (or heroic war: the script uses the Falklands conflict, which was more pathetic and risible than heroic), and unless you’re the Queen a right-wing woman isn’t going to get you votes with Academy members. If Meryl wants to win a third Oscar, she needs to play the matriarch in the movie version of “August: Osage County,” which still doesn’t have a director, much less a cast. (And don’t bother me with your emails saying that Meryl’s too young for that part: she’s early 60s and the character’s late 60s, well within Hollywood’s automatic-subtraction range.)
