Bio-pic on Thatcher: The Iron Lady

London: Meryl Streep has been reunited with her Mamma Mia! director Phyllida Lloyd for the Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady.

The film shows the former British Prime Minister at 86, widowed after the death of husband Denis, and looking back on her life as a provincial grocer's daughter rising to the top of a Conservative Party dominated by wealthy men.

The controversial politician became Britain's first female Prime Minister, who took power in 1979 and won three elections.

Lloyd admits she initially felt cautious about making the movie.

"When I was told there was a film about Margaret Thatcher that had been written by Abi Morgan, they were going to send me a screenplay, I was a little bit apprehensive, I think that biopics are very difficult to pull off, often very unsatisfying," Lloyd explains.

She continues that the screenplay from Shame and The Hour writer Abi Morgan changed her mind.

"I realized that it was so not what I was expecting and I think probably it's not going to be what a lot of the audience are expecting, because it's a film told partly from her point of view, so it's very subjective, and it's not looking at was she right or was she wrong to do this that or the other. It's telling a human story about power and the cost of a huge life."

The director was at least confident that Streep would pull off playing Thatcher, the divisive Conservative politician who reshaped Britain.

"I knew it would be possibly a little controversial to cast an American as Margaret Thatcher," Lloyd says.

"But I'd also heard that the British people had been, that the 'Today' program some years before had heard that there was going to be a film about Margaret Thatcher and they asked people to text in their ideas about who would be good casting for Margaret Thatcher. And apparently Meryl had come top of the British people's, the people's choice."

Streep in fact plays Thatcher for an age span of 40 years.

Her Academy Award winning co-star Jim Broadbent (Iris), who plays Denis Thatcher, was amazed at her transformation.

"It totally impressed me, I mean we did quite a lot of make up tests and things, and photographic sessions, and rehearsals before we started shooting, but it was clear from the word go how accurate and perceptive she'd been in working on the character. Utterly impressive."

Broadbent is not alone in his admiration of the actress.

Double Oscar winner Streep is the favorite for a third Academy award this year for her performance.

The 62 year-old-actress is also in the running for a Best Actress Golden Globe gong.

As prime minister, Thatcher fought a war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands, saw the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of communism and was branded The Iron Lady by Soviet journalists for her steely resolve.

She presided over the decline of Britain's industrial might and trade union power and the birth of a free-market culture with new winners and many new losers.

That historical drama is only glimpsed in The Iron Lady, which is more of a domestic drama than a political one.

"It's a film about many things, you know?" insists Lloyd.

"To my neice it's a film about sort of a woman struggling to make her voice heard in a world dominated by men, and to somebody else it's a story, a love story, a story of loss, and how you deal with the death of a partner, and how do you keep going when you're on your own. Something we're all going to have to, if we make it that far, you know we're all going to have to face. And that's what I think excited Abi Morgan and Meryl and myself about it, that it's the sort of film that we'll all find something of our lives to identify with in it."

Thatcher remains a polarizing figure and the film has been criticized by her enemies and allies alike.

Foes feel it is too sympathetic, while supporters and friends dislike its depiction of the former leader as a frail old woman with dementia.

The Iron Lady opened in the U.K. on January 6th.