The Lady | Film review

In another time, real-life Burmese expat and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi (Michelle Yeoh) might have led a quiet life in suburban England with her two sons and adoring professor husband (David Thewlis). But ever since her father was assassinated, this charismatic dissident has had an impassioned need to do right by her homeland. After she returns to Burma in 1988, it becomes clear the country requires her assistance, so a stay of weeks grows into years. It’s a stretch, however, that the filmmaker to shepherd a film about Suu Kyi’s democracy-pursuing exploits is Luc Besson (whose best work lately has been as cowriter of schlock-par-excellence like Taken and Colombiana). This is the kind of dull, dutiful slog that, with its golden-hued scenery and risibly black-and-white characterizations, might generously be described as handsomely mounted. Yeoh is photographed throughout like a beatified saint, while her primary antagonist is clearly a bad guy because he orders his men to shoot at stray dogs.