The Lady in the Van (2015)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Overrated and overhyped

Expected more

Best movie ever!

What a beautiful film. I can't understand how some reviewers have given it such low marks. You can almost smell Maggie Smith through the telly and the two Alan's are just perfect. As the story unfolds and more mysteries abound but are not revealed, the intrigue based around these two characters grows. "Hold my Hand... it's clean" sprung tears and made this film simply perfect.

Unusually, the user reviews here are, almost all, well-considered, and there is little useful to add. Music, cinematography, editing, lighting all support the consistent high standard of acting and direction. The themes - compassion, loneliness, manipulation, love, old age and so on - are teased out in careful Bennett fashion. We are engaged and entranced by a film that does not disappoint, yet does not seek to promise more than it can deliver. I saw Maggie Smith play a youthful Desdemona to Laurence Olivier's Othello, and this, at the other extent of her acting life, is as riveting performance as I can remember.

I took this off the shelf at my local library thinking I would enjoy Maggie Smith and a British comedy. What a disappointment. Perhaps it is the way British people are portrayed as just so nauseatingly tolerant it makes me know how the country is in the state it is in now with the social justice warriors out in full force.Here you have this woman who for all intents and purposes is nuttier than a fruitcake, she stinks too, and yet the whole town seems bent on not appearing "prejudiced" and so they go along with it to make themselves feel better - they admit this. None of the characters held my interest including the milquetoast writer who ends up with her vehicle in his driveway for years.I am all for being intrigued by the lives of those who appear lost and homeless. But this was nothing but a vanity exercise for Smith and not a very good one. I would not want to live in this neighborhood and at the rate Britain is going, who else will want to either?

I never take the time to review a movie, I don't think that my thoughts are important enough (at least talking about movies) for others to read them and also I hate to write in English -I have to think twice!- But this movie deserves it.As always, Maggie Smith makes and unforgettable performance. This time of Margaret Fairchild, an old woman who once was a pianist and a nun, but became an fugitive homeless who lives in a old van that eventually, as everything in her life that brings her joy, is painted yellow. All the Camden community (almost) is nice to her, but there is one person who is even more fond to her: Alan Bennett.While we see Alan speaking to himself, we also see how this lady manage to leave almost every day the van (and Alan's garage) to make a life: she goes to church, to shop groceries, and she even goes to the beach every now and then.With the time we get to know better the story of Mrs. Shepherd, and we get to love her more.This is a very well done movie with a peculiar and amazing ending. We all ought to see this movie.