"The Iron Lady" criticized by British leaders

(CBS) Sure, Meryl Streep is getting rave reviews for her work in "The Iron Lady," but was the film about former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made too soon?

The current U.K. prime minister seems to think so. David Cameron told the BBC that Streep's performance was "great," but that he wished the filmmakers would have held off on the movie for "another day."

"It's a fantastic piece of acting by Meryl Streep, but you can't help wondering, why do we have to have this film right now," he said about the movie, which follows as Thatcher enters old age.

"It is a film much more about aging and elements of dementia rather than about an amazing prime minister," Cameron added about the 86-year-old Thatcher. "My sense was a great piece of acting, a staggering piece of acting, but a film I wish they could have made another day."

Cameron isn't the only British leader criticizing the movie.

Former foreign secretary Lord Hurd described the dementia storyline as "ghoulish" to the Evening Standard, while former British Conservative Party Chairman Lord Norman told the BBC, "She [Thatcher] was never, in my experience, the half-hysterical, over-emotional, over-acting woman portrayed by Meryl Streep."

Thatcher's former public relations adviser Lord Bell said, "I have not seen it and will not."

But director Phyllida Lloyd defended her choice to make "The Iron Lady" at the European premiere this week, saying she and Streep both felt like the subject was worth "exploration."

"We all felt that a portrait of somebody who is experiencing a failure of strength and health and forgetfulness is not a shameful thing to put on the screen," she said, reports the Evening Standard.

Tell us: Do you think it was time to make a movie about Margaret Thatcher?