The Lady in the Van (2015)

What a beautiful film. I can't understand how some reviewers have given it such low marks. You can almost smell Maggie Smith through the telly and the two Alan's are just perfect. As the story unfolds and more mysteries abound but are not revealed, the intrigue based around these two characters grows. "Hold my Hand... it's clean" sprung tears and made this film simply perfect.

Lady in the Van (2015) tells the true story of Alan Bennett's (Alex Jennings) uneasy friendship with an homeless elderly woman (Maggie Smith) who stayed in his driveway in a series of vans for 15 years. Over the course of those years he learns about the series of events that caused Mary Shepard to become homeless. Despite the possible grim subject matter of being homeless and suffering from the mental stress that comes from being homeless and guilt from past mistakes, the film maintains a fairly light-heated tone that makes the some of the bleaker aspects have more of an impact as well as make it more digestible. The trouble with these types of movies is that there is very little I can say about it that is not spoiling a joke or a major plot development. However what I can talk about is the performances.Maggie Smith is amazing, flat out amazing. She captures every scene she is in, whether it is insulting Alan Bennett or anyone around her or showing how badly old age decays her physical and mental health, the film also displays how a series of events led her into the terrible state she is in at the time of the film. Alex Jennings is great too, in fact everyone is great in this, and they deliver their lines with perfect comedic timing and grace that always ends in laughs. The writing for the first and second act oozes wit and charm, none of it feels forced for comedic effect or heavy handed. It keeps the pace flowing smoothly and is after all the film's most valuable assist. However this sadly becomes badly apparent in the third act.I will not give away any spoilers but it tries to introduce a Meta narrative that works as well into the pace and previous type of narrative as one running a hand over a cactus does to ease pain. It hurts the film and reduces what could have been a overall pleasant and haunting movie into a silly feature that thinks it is cleverer then it is.I did enjoy the film and I would watch it again. It is just a shame that the final act decides it wants to change the narrative in that the film had not earned or needed.

I'm going to keep this brief as I don't want to add any spoilers. If you watch the trailer you will generally get the story quite quickly but it drags out a bit for 1 hour and 40 minutes. The acting is good but I wasn't impressed with the amount of swearing in it. For parents to take young children in (which I didn't but saw others) and then to have have "F" swear words mentioned in a 12a is pretty poor. I wouldn't recommend this for children and should be aimed at the 15 certification. I think there are times when our children are being desensitised to real events when they pick up words, actions and poor behaviour based on a movie. I know the BBFC has given it a 12a and left the decision to parents but from my experience a lot of parents are so naive about these things and then wonder why their child ends up swearing when they've just taken them to a movie full of it.

I have liked Alan Bennett ever since his TV series and the stage adaption of History Boys years ago. Alex Jennings was really a good pick for him because the real Alan Bennett and himself very much look the same. I was very surprised that the real Alan Bennett appeared in the near end of the film, I thought that was honestly Alex Jennings lol! Its like they are swapping around as twins, you don't realise which one was which!Maggie Smith was good as the old woman, she does know how to play a cranky one too! Although I couldn't understand why her character wasn't seen escaping the nursing home, it was as if she runned and left her wheelchair behind. Yeah the social worker appeared but why didn't we see her running away from the nursing home?! Thats why I had to give this movie a 7/10, even though its alright but, I felt like it was being too rushed yknow!