Sameeha Pugh
It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
Skyler
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
Francene Odetta
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
moonspinner55
Alan Bennett adapted his autobiographical 1999 West End play and subsequent BBC Radio 4 drama about a homeless woman in 1970 Camden named Mary Shepherd who needed a place to park her van, her home on wheels, after leaving it on the street has alerted the authorities. Bennett (played by Alex Jennings as a maybe-maybe not homosexual) is too polite to refuse Mary help, and so allows her to park her van in his driveway, where she stayed for some 15 years. Maggie Smith, recreating her stage success, is not portraying a charming vagabond, an irascible curmudgeon. Her Mary is an impossible handful, and one watches this film about her not knowing how to respond. If the picture is meant to be wily and eccentric, it fails because it isn't funny. When Shepherd needs medical help and the classical music is poured on, that doesn't work either, because this character as written isn't poignant. I tired of her long before the finish. *1/2 from ****
swjg
If you have seen the trailer - you have seen most of the jokes in the movie. Which is not to negatively criticize it - it will get you through the door.What you then get is a nice study of an old lady living in a van in real playwright Alan Bennett's driveway for 15 years and of Bennett's introspection and observations that subsequently lead to the play and now movie.Maggie Smith is a joy as the cantankerous old lady with her personal demons.Filmed at the actual location of the real story - The street backdrop - set with a tour de force of the British car industry of the 1960's through late 1980's is an impressive feat by the producers in its own right!
sandra small
The Lady in the Van is, on the surface a showcase of sublime acting by Dame Maggie Smith, but the film is multilayered. Firstly, Alan Bennett plays with the notion of reality and fiction, between consciousness and the subconscious. He uses The Lady in the Van to question whether his years of writing, alone at his desk, has blurred reality and the unreality (the imagination). Then he projects that onto the reader, and audience. Now I get why Alan Bennet is a genius. Kudos also to the director. Nicolas Hynter for interpreting the essence of Bennet's brilliance. The narrative of the story also deals with mutable social issues, such as eccentricity, abuse of homeless people, and the idealistic social worker., corrupt police, and the hypocrisy of the liberal elite.That hypocrisy could be directed squarely at Bennett, who, as a wealthy man, could have easily bought a house for the lady who lived in a van. I feel she was fodder for his project and to that extent what are is skewed ethics here genius writer or not?If you like Bennett's style of writing, and Dame Maggie Smith's acting and the work of director Nicholas Hynter, then this film could be your cup of tea!
David Johnson
Sails a little close to sentimentality at times but perhaps that forgivable, a sweet story about a not so sweet lady. A great and largely true tale, Maggie Smith is magnificent and Alex Jennings very good. A special mention for Frances De La Tour and the score, both great. Why my reservations? Well not much happens which is fine, but this in turn, turns your attention to the characters and that's where TLIV misses the mark. I think the decision to cast Jennings as two Allan Benetts was a theatrical contrivance that doesn't gel cinematically. A voice over would have worked far better and elevated this good movie to great. So watch and enjoy but mark this down as a missed opportunity.
