Movie Review - The Lady In The Van

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2015 – Spoiler alerts. A really lovely heart-warming true story about the dramatist Alan Bennet (played by Alex Jennings) and a mysterious lady in a series of vans (and a three wheeler car) who lived on his driveway right outside his house. The Lady, Mary Shepherd, (played by Maggie Smith who has previously performed the role on stage and radio) was virtually homeless, and as Bennet later discovered, actually a former nun with a troubled history. She lived in her van, and made a little money selling street art, religious pamphlets and pencils on the streets. Initially she was living on the Camden, London street near Bennet’s house, moving from outside one house to another every few months but changing parking regulations meant that she had to get her vehicle off the road. Bennett kindly but rashly invited her to move the van into his home’s driveway, expecting her to move on within a few months. She remained there until her death fifteen years later. Moving her into the house was not an option. Shepherd was a cantankerous, aggressive lady with little sense of gratitude and chronic hygiene problems. As her presence continued, Bennet gradually learned more about her past. She had been a talented classical musician, but gave up music as part of her vows to a convent, but her mental health crisis led to her dismissal from the order twice and her own brother had her sectioned to an asylum from which she eventually escaped. She was also being blackmailed by an ex-policeman as her van was once involved in a fatal hit and run car crash in which a biker was killed (though it was his fault, in fleeing the scene, Shepherd was in constant danger of imprisonment). Bennett did all he could to look after his unlikely neighbour, though it put a huge strain on him too, and the film, scripted by him (he appears as himself in the closing moments) captures as much of his own remarkable life in the 1960’s and 1970’s as that of the strange old lady he befriended despite her bizarre eccentricities. Funny and sometimes sad, this is a beautiful little movie well worth seeing and much deserving of awards for Smith, Jennings and Bennett alike. All the surviving cast members of another Bennet scripted movie, The History Boys appear in this film, mostly in cameos, with a key part in both movies for Frances de Le Tour. Only Richard Griffith is absent having died between the making of the two movies. Arthur Chappell