The Lady in the Van -- Movie Review

image from en.wikipedia.org

A friend kindly loaned me The Lady in the Van on DVD. It's been years since I've watched anything but Downton Abbey on DVD. Did you know they include umpteen trailers for other movies that are apparently available on DVD. My husband pointed out that at least there were no ads for popcorn and Coke and no advisories to silence our cell phones.

And the way they choose which movie trailers to include completely escapes me. At least at the movie theater the attendant trailers are usually rated the same as the movie you went to see. You know, R-rated thrillers if you're there to see an R-rated thriller.

This movie is rated PG. All of the other trailers but one were rated R. Guess there just aren't many PG-rated films that the powers-that-be think will be of interest to adults. Or adults of a certain age. True. Maggie Smith movies tend to attract older people, of whom I'm one.

So now, I suppose I've put you younger people off. And movie reviews are supposed to encourage people to watch the film, if the reviewer liked it. Which I did. Very much.

And no, I can't in good conscience recommend it to you young people. Especially if you have close family members aged sixty and up. Or unusual characters who wander through your neighborhood. It will only frighten you.

It is, however, a wonderful movie that will make you laugh, discomfit you, and bring a tear or two to your eyes.

The Lady in the Van is "a mostly true story" by playwright Alan Bennett about himself and the odd homeless woman whom he allowed to live in her van in his driveway temporarily. Temporarily for the rest of her life.

Alex Jennings plays Bennett, a self-absorbed writer. So self-absorbed, in fact, that he is two characters -- one who writes, and one who lives. Jennings plays both parts. And they talk to each other. After all, Bennett the writer explains "writing is talking to one's self."

Maggie Smith stars as Miss Shepherd, The Lady. She is a mystery unfolding gradually as the movie goes along.

Miss Shepherd is unwashed and ungrateful. Gifts she accepts or rejects with equal disdain. She parks her van in front of this house and that in a not quite tony neighborhood in London. The neighbors don't want her there, but none is willing to be thought cruel enough to actually get rid of her. Certainly not our playwright.

Her logic? Well, it's unquestionable, albeit a bit specious. When neighbors tell her she can't park her van in front of their home she responds most reasonably with "I've had guidance.... The Virgin Mary. I spoke to her yesterday. She was outside the Post Office in Park Way."

The Lady is not attractive. She is not charming. She is outrageous. She's an embarrassment and a bother. And, yet, somehow, she's completely vulnerable. You want her to be safe. Maybe even happy.

So much about her character reminds me of people I have known.

Miss Shepherd gets Bennett to do things for her that he had no intention of doing including pushing her to the top of the street where she turned and free-wheeled back down with such joy and abandon it's infectious. You smile, perhaps laugh out loud.

photo from npr.org

(I used to work with a man in a wheel chair. He was NOT difficult in the least. He and his daughters would go to the zoo armed with lettuce. The elephant enclosure had a sidewalk running downhill outside its west fence. He would begin at the bottom of the hill where he would toss lettuce into the pen and the elephants would gobble it up. Then his girls would push him to the top of the side walk with the elephants following every step (roll?) of the way. He would turn and free-wheel down with the elephants in hot pursuit. He'd throw more lettuce into the elephants' pen and do it all over again.)

In the movie, a neighbor suggests that Miss Shepherd would be a "good subject" for Mr. Bennett.

"For what?" he asks.

"For one of your little plays."

Writer-Bennett argues with liver-Bennett. "One old lady is enough," he says meaning his mother who has Alzheimer's whom he features in his plays.

Here he is, caught between his mother's dementia and the demented lady living in his driveway.

His mother is put in a care home and The Lady gets a social worker. Two actually.

The first one is as ineffectual as the rest of the neighborhood. The second one is the proverbial do-gooder who will do good according to her own lights without regard to what their who-good's-done-to wants done good.

I used to work for the Welfare Department and believe me, I've known both kinds. Truth be told, I've been both kinds myself.

One of my favorite scenes is Mr. Bennett watching the ambulance driver who comes to take The Lady to something called a Day Center where she will be bathed and given clean clothes. The playwright watches this man treat The Lady with great respect, even putting his arm around her to help her into her wheelchair. Despite her stench.

(I understand. I once was charged with helping remove three neglected children from their filthy home. The youngest was five and hadn't had a bath in I don't know how long. She smelled so bad that when she held her arms up for me to take her it was all I could do to keep from stepping back -- a beautiful little girl who was in no way responsible for her condition. She didn't understand what was going on. She just wanted to be held.)

The very next scene is The Lady in her wheelchair on a lift rising into the ambulance -- like a queen.

Then when she returns to her van, Miss Shepherd asks "Mr. Bennett, hold my hand? It's clean."

Ah yes. Not a seven-hankie film. But Dame Maggie Smith makes it a good strong three-hankie film.

In the end there is a blue plaque with Miss Shepherd's name and the years she lived in the van parked in Mr. Bennett's drive. Thinking I would use a shot of that blue plaque, I discovered the Blue Plaque is apparently a 'thing' in London. There's a list in Wikipedia of blue plaques saying who lived in what house when -- Sylvia Plath, Sir Winston Churchill, Jimi Hendrix, etc.

It may be "a mostly true story," but The Lady's Blue Plaque is apparently artistic license. It's not on the Wikipedia list.