The Lady in the Van
Director: Nicholas Hytner
Talent: Maggie Smith, Dominic Cooper, James Corden, Jim Broadbent
Release Date: 13th November 2015
When a real life occurrence presents the material for the kind of film your mum would love if it starred Maggie Smith, it’d be a shame not to write it down. So that’s what playwright Alan Bennett did, with the true story of a homeless woman who spent 15 years living out of a van in Bennett’s Camden driveway.
This film adaptation of Bennett’s own stage play certainly captures all the right tragic-yet-heartwarming notes typical of a film such as this, and gives Smith another instantly memorable role. But The Lady in the Van also manages to wring a little more depth out of this formula. Beneath the surface of a story of a mannered middle class faced with a peculiar intruder lies cutting commentary about class divisions, while Bennett’s deft script works in some subtle elements of post-modernist theatre, gently breaking the fourth wall and politely reminding the audience of the film’s status as a written text.
Words: Bernard O’Rourke
