The early Oscar buzz most certainly began within minutes of the announcement last year that Meryl Streep would depict conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady. And with the first photos of Streep in character surfacing last February, it appeared the hype wasn't unfounded, at least from a visual standpoint.

Now it's time to put the Oscar hype machine in full gear and get out of the way as the first international teaser trailer for the film has hit the web giving us our first look at Streep approaching her character with the same zeal and fervor with which the real Iron Lady attacked her everyday life.

At just slightly over a minute long, we get nothing more than a brief glimpse of Streep's characterizations, but the Stewie Griffin head-tilt, and the widening and squinting of the eyes at key moments in her dialogue (is her depiction patterned more after Dunaway's Mommie Dearest?) give us the idea that the early buzz may have been correct after all.

The biopic is written by award-winning TV writer Abi Morgan (Sex Traffic) and stars, in addition to Streep as the U.K.'s Prime Minister from 1979-1990, Jim Broadbent as Maggie's husband Denis, Anthony Head as Thatcher's longest-serving Cabinet minister Geoffrey Howe, and Roger Allam as her campaign's political strategist Gordon Reece.

The Weinstein Company, which is quickly becoming known for its award-winning releases, has scheduled the film to hit theaters during prime awards season, on December 16th.

Watch the trailer for The Iron Lady below: