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It actually wasn’t a hit-piece on Thatcher. It shows her triumphs, when everybody loved her, as well as the moments when the Brits hated her (mostly thanks to the left-wing press). In general, I thought it was a personal story, and it didn’t focus on her policies. However, it had some great scenes with the young Maggie putting down the old-boys-network with a few witty, Reaganesque phrases, and does show her as a grocer’s daughter who is always reminded that the privileged class (most of them lefties) think she’s a freak and wish that she’d go back to the grocery store.

Mostly the story focused on how her public life impacted her relationship with various family members, particularly her husband (and I thought their relationship was very true to life and touching, particularly her anger at him for dying and leaving her, since this is something I saw with my own mother).

I saw the movie the day it was released with my 36 year old daughter. We both came to the separate, but same conclusion that this was not a movie about Margaret Thatcher and her achievements as PM, but rather, a study in dementia and old age. It was disgusting in the way that this great woman was portrayed, i.e., an adsled old woman who had lost touch with reality. Thatcher's family refused to go see the movie. Streep even failed to mention Thatcher in her acceptaance speech. Another left wing hit piece on a conservative. Here is what PM Cameron and others had to say about the movie:

"Meryl Streep should probably get an Oscar for an amazing portrayal (but) there was too much of a concentration on Lady Thatcher's dementia and not enough on her life story, her achievements," Conservative lawmaker Louise Mensch told Reuters.

One-time Thatcher rival Michael Heseltine, who once challenged her for the Conservative leadership, took a similar view. "I think Mrs. Thatcher was a formidable prime minister and to produce a film in her later stages of life depicting the problems of advanced old age, I find extremely distasteful," he told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

But her failure to mention Baroness Thatcher riled Lord Tebbit, a close ally of the 86-year-old throughout her time leading the country. He told The Sun: 'I'm not at all surprised she didn't mention her. "The film was about Meryl Streep, not Lady Thatcher. If Margaret Thatcher had been like the woman portrayed by Meryl Streep, she wouldn't have lasted six months as Prime Minister."

The Iron Lady and Margaret Thatcher's dementia: Why this despicable film makes voyeurs of us all