What the hell is this? I was terrified of empathising with Thatcher, but shouldn’t have worried because despite Meryl Streep’s magnificent performance, and she is incredible, the film is such a resolutely dull, cliche ridden non film that it is rendered impotent by a complete lack of original voice.

It covers all the regular biopic bases and veers away from any of her controversial policies, focusing so squarely as it does on her ‘struggles’ and loneliness. It’s clever and is so formulaic and obvious that it feels like a film, even though it’s a cynically constructed illusion of a film.

I went in expecting to hate Thatcher more, and came out hating mainstream British cinema more. This is an irresponsible travesty of a film that is all slo-mo, epic score and utterly devalues the originality of Thatcher. Like or loathe she is an original, and her complex tales deserves more. Yes, she was a lower middle class woman in an upper class man’s world but that story here is reduced to mush by lack of conviction or imagination and we learn nothing about anything, historically or emotionally. A crying shame. But Meryl is superb.