Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Roger Allam, Jim Broadbent, Frances De la Tour, Gwen Taylor, Davis Calder, James Corden, Samuel Anderson, Sacha Dhawan, Eleanor Matsuura, Russell Tovey, Stephen Campbell Moore, Samuel Barnett, Deborah Findlay, Elliot Levey, Marion Bailey, Jamie Parker, Harriet Thorpe, Rosalind Knight, Pandora Colin, Richard Banks, Geoffrey Streatfeild, Tom Couslton, George Taylor, Clare Hammond. Dominic Cooper, Dermot Crowley.
It is in the nature of the artist, the playwright, the poet and novelist to argue and bicker with themselves, to have the two sided conversation in which one lives life and the other side of their complex personality write down all they see. It is the observer and the observed in one small neat package which makes the world of literature seem so fascinating. Not so much an artistic individual but a commune of ideas working overtime to convey a message.
For Alan Bennett’s cinematic adapted stage play, The Lady In The Van, the duel nature comes with the addition of a muse who both fascinates and repels in equal measure and in one simple act of lethargic kindness becomes the basis for a moment of British cinema excellence.
When Alan Bennett decides, in his usual laconic way to allow the waif and stray like figure of Mary Shepherd to park her crumbling and memory laden van in his drive, Time plays tricks on his generosity and in return the woman, played with divine sentiment by the excellent Maggie Smith, becomes the aged muse, the figure in which 15 years of suffering, tortured memory and well laid out laughter round themselves upon.
The pairing of Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings, as Alan Bennett, is one that truly has struck gold and the relationship that is captured between muse and playwright is such that to be economical with the rapport built up would be damaging to the memory of both artist and transient thought.
It is gratifying to have two such well rounded figures battling it out for sympathy on screen and in the minds of the audience, a sense of cinematic beauty comes across and whilst the pain of pathos is hard, the pleasure of connection is sublime and with tremendous support from Jim Broadbent, Frances De la Tour and the ever fantastic Roger Allam, The Lady In The Van should be seen as the best British film of 2015. It is a feast of acting supremacy, of Alan Bennett’s own indomitable style parading with finely measured accuracy for the sardonic weaved with wonder throughout, it is a film of absolute sincerity.
Maggie Smith has always been one of Britain’s greats, The Lady In The Van cements that talent for all time. A film of laid back genius, true Bennett at its very best!
Ian D. Hall