The Lady In The Van * * * *

Horrible woman but fine film.

I didn’t like The Lady In The Van.  I thought the film was pretty good, but I didn’t like her.  I can’t imagine anybody who would: cantankerous, dirty, ungrateful, demanding pig-headed horrible old bag.  Funny that they’d want to make a film about her.  She’s a bit of a mystery and to be honest if I met her I wouldn’t be much inspired to find out what’s behind all this willful homelessness, uselessness and lack of hygiene.

I’d just go "Ugh!", which interestingly, is what the narrator does quite frequently.  He has the patience of Job.  

She started off by parking her van in his street and ended up with her van in his drive where it stayed for fifteen years.

I shouldn't say we know nothing about her.  We learn two things. She committed a crime years ago and she has wasted her true talent.  No spoilers there. You’ll see that in the opening credits.

But to be honest, for most of the time one isn’t inspired to learn about her, so in that respect this is a very honest drama.  It doesn’t romanticise her greatly at all.  It’s mostly about Alan Bennett who wrote the play which became the screenplay.  Apparently it really happened to him.  

What I admire about The Lady In The Van is that they don't really become friends and he doesn’t learn much about life from her.  It’s brutally like real life in some ways.  Horrible useless people ship and ship out of our lives and we just have to deal with them. It’s just that in this case she was someone who stuck around for fifteen years.

But it’s honesty is also its Achilles heel.  Like someone with mental illness, it’s not romantic and it's hard to live with. Bennett has written about someone who does not charm or engage and he hasn’t compromised himself or her much - though he confesses he has gilded the lily from time to time as he or his alter-ego talk directly to the camera.  Perhaps she was even worse and didn’t even have the wasted talent he refers to.

This is a well paced intelligent film.  Contrary to the title Bennett was wise to make himself the principal character rather than the the lady in the van.  Well played by Alex Jennings, he’s quite pleasant. Maggie Smith does a brave job in bravely portraying the horrible old woman without attempting to turn her into something we can love.