British gem, Maggie Smith takes a break from Downton for a considerably different, more bedraggled role in The Lady in The Van. This film is an entertaining screen adaption of Alan Bennett’s award winning 1999 play, based on his experiences of a sharp tongued homeless woman called Miss Shepard, who camped outside his driveway for more than 15 years.
The playwright has adapted his stage work, employing the same theatrical device of the real Alan: an internal self, who endlessly enquires on the tramp’s shady past as they mooch about a north London home.
Dame Maggie Smith brings to life the eye-catching role as the fragrant tramp, unleashing an array of insults that would surely have her role of the Dowager of Downton Abbey smirking with approval. This film is splattered with pathos and regret, which reminds us that Maggie Smith is a gifted physician, comedian as well as a twinkly-eyed sniper with satirical one-liners.
Alan (Jennings) moves into a house in Camden and is befriended by well-to-do neighbours including opera fans Rufus (Roger Allam) and Pauline (Deborah Findlay), who live opposite, and Ursula Vaughan Williams (Frances de la Tour). Soon after, a cranky woman called Miss Shepherd (Smith) settles in their street in her ramshackle vehicle and bullies Alan into pushing her transport, when it refuses to start during a downpour. “You wouldn’t see Harold Pinter pushing vans down the street!” Alan berates himself.
When council bureaucracy threatens the old woman’s future, the playwright foolishly agrees to let her take up temporary residence on his driveway for a few weeks.
Maggie Smith gives an exceptional performance here, one that doesn’t try to be charming in any way or to play on the audience’s sense of pity.
Months turn into years and the playwright despairs as he becomes Miss Shepherd’s guardian and suffers regular visits from interfering social services worker Miss Briscoe (Cecilia Noble). When a police officer called Underwood (Jim Broadbent) begins to harass the old woman late at night, Alan speculates about her former life. Meanwhile, Miss Shepherd seeks forgiveness for unspoken sins in the confessional of the local priest (Dermot Crowley). “Absolution is not like a bus pass,” the holy man tenderly proclaims. “It does not run out.”
The Lady In The Van is an amusing and heart-warming film for these cold winter months. Maggie Smith gives an exceptional performance here, one that doesn’t try to be charming in any way or to play on the audience’s sense of pity. It is ascertained that Margaret’s homelessness and journey from concert pianist to destitution are not made light of, nor are they overdramatized; they are simply told as they were. It is this mixture of satire, humour and reality that create such a thought provokingly absurd film.