Two different viewpoints below. Here’s our review of a draft of the script.
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Many feared the worst when they heard Meryl Streep was to play Margaret Thatcher in a new film.
Not only was Baroness Thatcher to be cast as a rather befuddled, elderly woman looking back on the triumphs and disappointments of her life, but Streep is also of a very different political hue from Maggie.
It was commonly agreed that our greatest Prime Minister since Churchill would be vilified.
Such fears are misplaced. Having just seen the film in a London preview before its release in January, and then having spoken at length to Meryl Streep about her role in The Iron Lady, I can state categorically that the doomsayers were wrong.
Streep’s portrayal will, I have no doubt, come to be seen as magnificent portrait of Lady Thatcher.
And when I spoke exclusively to the double Oscar-winning actress about playing her, she declared herself to be in ‘awe’ of Lady T, adding that this was the biggest role she had undertaken in her career. ‘It took a lot out of me, but it was a privilege to play her, it really was,’ she told me.
‘It was one of those rare, rare films where I was grateful to be an actor and grateful for the privilege of being able to look at a life deeply with empathy. There’s no greater joy.’
The 62-year-old star, who was in London to see the completed film, explained how she admired Thatcher’s willingness to stand and be leader, a decision which meant she had to offer her life, and her family’s, ‘on an altar’ to the public good.
MailOnline world exclusive: Scroll down for a first look at the official Iron Lady trailer
‘I still don’t agree with a lot of her policies,’ said Streep. ‘But I feel she believed in them and that they came from an honest conviction, and that she wasn’t a cosmetic politician just changing make-up to suit the times. She stuck to what she believed in, and that’s a hard thing to do.
The depiction of Lady Thatcher as a stooped old lady in a headscarf contrasts with her appearance during her most recent public outing.
Dressed in a trademark blue suit, she beamed for the cameras as she celebrated her 86th birthday last month with her son, Sir Mark.
However, the extent of Lady Thatcher’s mental decline was laid bare by her daughter, Carol, in a 2008 memoir.
Miss Thatcher told how the combination of dementia and a series of minor strokes had reduced her mother to a shadow of her former self: struggling to finish sentences or to recognise family members.
Miss Thatcher also disclosed that her mother frequently forgot that Sir Denis died in 2003. “I had to keep giving her the bad news over and over again,” she wrote.
We will know the answer on December 30th.