Meryl Streep takes on Iron Lady in Thatcher biopic

LONDON: The bouffant hair is hidden under a headscarf, the once erect figure is bowed with age, but when she questions the shopkeeper about the high cost of milk, the schoolma'am voice is unmistakeable.

Margaret Thatcher, as played by Meryl Streep in the opening scenes of new biopic "The Iron Lady", is a subdued version of the powerful woman she once was, just as the real 86-year-old is now frail and suffering from dementia.

But while the film takes the current day Maggie as a starting point, flashes of memory whisk viewers back to the days when she was the Western world's first female leader and possibly Britain's most divisive prime minister.

Director Phyllida Lloyd -- the woman behind "Mamma Mia!" -- says the film is not intended to be political, describing it as "almost Shakespearean; the story of a great leader who is both tremendous and flawed in all kinds of ways".

Streep, 62, has admitted that she knew little of Thatcher's policies before taking the role but said she saw the film as less about politics and more about "what was the cost of her political decisions on her as a human being".

As a result "The Iron Lady" -- the name given to Thatcher by the Soviets -- is a story of ambition; power won and power lost; but also of love, centred around her relationship with her husband Denis, who died in 2003.