“Nurse! Crazy Maggie’s been at the milk again!” So begins a bizarre tale of dementia that is 50% the story of an old woman chatting to the ghost of her dead husband, and 50% a glossy montage sequence of 1980s Britain.

The headlines around this release have centre wholly on how the film affects the image of two women: Meryl Streep and Margaret Thatcher.

For the former, deserved plaudits sing of her versatile performance, equally capturing the fragility of an aging icon and the prowess of a political powerhouse at the top of her game. She certainly looks the part, and at times she captures the eponymous Iron Lady’s mannerism with startling accuracy.

The trouble is, this performance means the film is in danger of being more about Meryl Streep than her stated subject. Certainly Thatcher biographer John Campbell, whose book was used in the scripting process, claimed that the end product was historically lightweight, and dealt with the supporting politicians (particularly the male ones) around Maggie in a somewhat harsh manner.

Norman Tebbit, a contemporary of Thatcher’s, was equally critical of the film’s stance, with many more of his colleagues upset at the depiction of a frail, elderly woman rather than focussing on the woman who so changed the face of Britain.

Even Thatcher’s detractors were unhappy, considering the film too sympathetic to the woman who presided over a bloody war in the Falklands, a bitterly opposed tax and numerous riots.

They all have a point. There is precious little of political value in this glossy film to warrant being labelled a biopic. Meanwhile the heart-string tugging that comes as she tries to exorcise the ghost of deceased husband Denis (Jim Broadbent) is often cynical and sometimes way off tonally. The comedic moments are downright bizarre.

Frankly, it seems there is little reason to see this odd hybrid of dementia-lamenting and lightwight political montage. Unless you want to work out whether Streep’s worth a punt for the Oscar, that is.