Meryl Streep to star in The Giver

Meryl Streep is to star in ‘The Giver’.

The Oscar-winning actress – who played the iconic Margaret Thatcher in ‘The Iron Lady’ – looks set to star alongside Jeff Bridges after landing the role of the Chief Elder in the movie adaptation of Lois Lowry’s 1993 fantasy novel, according to Deadline.

The film is a co-production between The Weinstein Company and Walden Media and will be set in a dystopian society, which is disturbed when a 12-year-old boy named Jonas (played by Brenton Thwaites) is selected to learn from an elderly man, The Giver (Bridges), about the pain and strife of the real world.

Streep’s alter-ego is in charge of keeping order in the society, but that authority is put in danger when the youngster is chosen to be the receiver of memories of life before the ‘sameness movement’, which froze the population and created conformism.

Although the fantasy movie is similar to other dystopian movies with young leads – like ‘The Hunger Games’ and the upcoming ‘Divergent’ – Lowry’s critically acclaimed novel was thought to be ahead of its time when it was released in 1993.

Production is set to begin in South Africa in eight weeks with Phil Noyce directing.