Benjamin999

Meryl Streep very much deserved the Academy Award for her performance in this film. If you're old enough to remember Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister of Britain, then you might understand how well Meryl Streep captured the persona and the essence of an extraordinary woman who one Soviet diplomat called The Iron Lady. You might also remember how utterly despised she was by the prevailing popular culture for her strong will and conservative views. But she never wavered; she instead took the UK from the brink of chaos back to its rightful place among the world's leading nations.

It is rather unusual to think of an important historical film such as this one as too short, they are most often too long. But this film omitted the mid 1980s years when PM Thatcher was at the height of her power. The film is barely 1 hour 45 minutes; it could have been 30 minutes longer, with a section devoted to the mid 1980s.

She's going a bit crazy. The house is her turf; and she knows how to take advantage of it. She will lock you out if she can, so pocket a spare key. Raquel! Let me in!

An amusing study of human territoriality and the limitations of one's ability to control what is thought as a possessed environment, the film explores irrational behaviors that can be remedied by tenderness and patience.

This Chilean film is among the best foreign origin films of the year. Sad, funny, charming and unpredictable. Nice job, Sebastian Silva. Catalina Saaverda is brilliant as the somewhat disturbed maid, Raquel. The film offers us just a glimpse at Chile; which looks like a nice place.

Had one failed diplomatic initiative during the Civil War succeeded, could it have changed all of history? Perhaps. Kevin Willmott's chilling and somewhat plausible alternate history of America was so well produced that even its exceedingly unlikely and prejudiced retelling of the 20th century passes with a bit of artistic license. It assumes, wrongly, that America is a country completely without any virtue, a view to be rejected outright. Assumptions about a Confederate Empire, chattel slavery spread unimpeded and unchallenged throughout the Americas, a ridiculous notion of a "Cotton Curtain" cold war with Canada just don't add up. It could not have evolved that way. Nonetheless, the alternate 19th century history is utterly fascinating. Had Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin succeeded in getting European powers to fight for the Confederacy, what would America look like today?

Even with its terribly cynical and often unfair view of America, I admit I couldn't stop thinking about this film.