THE LADY IN THE VAN (12)
D: Nicholas Hytner
Sony/Tristar/BBC (Nicholas Hytner, Damian Jones & Kevin
Loader)
UK/US 2015
104 mins
Comedy/Drama
W: Alan Bennett [based on his play]
DP: Andrew Dunn
Ed: Tariq Anwar
Mus: George Fenton
Maggie Smith (Miss Mary Shepherd / Margaret
Fairchild), Alex Jennings (Alan Bennett), Roger Allam (Rufus), Deborah Findlay (Pauline), Jim Broadbent (Underwood)
A
rather pedestrian adaptation of a stage play, based on events from its writer Alan Bennett's life, when he allowed an elderly woman to live in her dilapidated van on his driveway outside his
London home.
Maggie Smith's cantankerous performance carries the film,
which misses a trick by failing to capture any humour in the scenes where the main male character, based on the writer Alan Bennett himself, has imaginary conversations with his
conscience.
Not a bad film, but not worth going out of your way for. It
just doesn't motor along the way a stage play of the same material would.
6/10