The Lady in the Van (2015)

 "You wouldn't get Harold Pinter pushing a van down the street."

I remember reading, some decades ago, some mention of the tragic and eccentric Miss Mary Sheppard, as she certainly wasn't called, in the memoirs of Alan Bennett. rather more recently, we lost the superlative Maggie Smith. So it's high time that I saw, and blogged, this film.

Much though Alex Jennings is magnificent in totally inhabiting Alan Bennett while also giving us not merely an impression but an actual performance, Maggie Smith is indeed utterly incredible here, in a role that perfectly fits her talents- a humorous figure, yes, but one who will, by the film, come to evoke such pathos. Not exactly likeable- but endearing, nonetheless.

Yes, as befitting a script by Alan Bennett, this film is about so much. The very English timidity that can lead one to reluctantly allow an imperiously haughty homeless old lady to live in a van on one's property. How easily one can become a carer without really intending to, or realising it. That very English issue of class- Miss Sheppard is from loftier origins than the nevertheless Oxford educated Alan Bennett, son of a Leeds butcher, yet he is now a feted playwright living in fashionable Camden whereas she is homeless- plays out in all its nuances, most deliciously as Bennett's mother avoids contact with her son's unwanted guest because "With her being educated, I wouldn't know what to say."

This isn't a film for those who like action- very little, I suppose, happens, and even the mystery of Miss Sheppard's past is not over-emphasised. This is a quietly philosophical, meditative film that is, above all, about the ethics of using real peoples' lives for one's writing, and I for one found it most enjoyable.