Meryl Streep’s new Margaret Thatcher biopic, “The Iron Lady,” has Britain’s former prime minister’s friends and family fuming.
A key advisor to Thatcher, Lord Tim Bell, told the U.K. Telegraph, “I can't be bothered to sensationalize this rubbish. I can't see the point of this film.”
“Its only value is to make some money for Meryl Streep and whoever wrote it,” Lord Bell added. “It is a nonevent. It won't make any difference to her place in history or the fact of what she did.”
Family members and close associates of Thatcher call the film an “insult” and a “Left-wing fantasy,” according to the Telegraph.
Streep said that playing the legendary leader was a “privilege.”
“I still don’t agree with a lot of her policies,” the actress said. “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.”
Although the film depicts Thatcher as an effective prime minister who deftly dealt with the Falkland Islands conflict and limited the power of the labor unions, it sensationalizes and exaggerates the degree of diminished mental capacity caused by her struggle with dementia.
Despite the criticism of the movie, “The Iron Lady” has generally been well received by film critics and is expected to earn a 17th Oscar nomination for Streep.
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.