“The Iron Lady” is an utter travesty, both in content and in form. When a film is this bad, and a critic has to give a sense of why, it’s difficult to know where to begin. How about this: The climax of this movie about one of the most important people — not just women, but people — of the 20th century comes when Margaret Thatcher decides to throw out her dead husband’s clothes.

That might work if the film had focused on the relationship between the former prime minister of Great Britain and her husband of over half a century. But there’s no emotional buildup, and so no emotional payoff. Sitting there, realizing that this was the climax, I was simply dumbfounded.