The Lady In The Van

In 1968, playwright Alan Bennett (who eventually became the author of "The History Boys," among many other plays and screenplays) moved in the up and coming London neighborhood of Camden. Among his new neighbors was an older woman who lived in a van. Eventually, in 1974, the woman needed to move her van off the street -- the local government had hit upon the idea of trying to force her out of the neighborhood by banning her van from being parked on the street -- and Bennett ended up ceding his off-street parking spot to her.

For the next 15 years, until her death in 1989, the older woman dwelled in her van, which remained parked just outside Bennett's window as he wrote. By that time, of course, despite her cantankerousness and his grudging care for her well being, the two had got to know each other rather well; the name she used was Miss Shepherd (Maggie Smith), and she had a complex history that included having driven ambulances, being a novitiate at a nunnery, and -- here's the real rub -- a fugitive from the law in the wake of an accident that left a young motorcyclist dead.

This latter event propelled Miss Shepherd over the edge. (She's already a little nuts, and religiously deluded to boot.) She's not portrayed as barking mad, but she's definitely on the far side of eccentric.

Then again, so is Bennett (Alex Jennings), whose house is a hodgepodge of books and oddments, with rooms that are painted in a manner not too unlike Miss Shepherd's own habit of slathering bright yellow paint all over her own vehicles (which included at least two vans and a three-wheeled car). As seen here, Bennett is not one person, but two; there's Alan the guy who lives his life, and Alan the writer who draws on those experiences to create salable stories. (Jennings plays both roles thanks to digital effects work.)

The film works as a comedy, and as a social comment on the injustice of treating people as disposable, but it's the hard-edged and perpetually grouchy Miss Shepherd who makes it all work. She's tormented and her life is reduced to disgusting squalor, and yet she becomes a neighborhood fixture. More than that, she becomes a surrogate mother of sorts to Bennett -- not the mother who cares for him, but the mother for whom he cares, if only with great reluctance. (He holds his own mother at a distance, and suffers excoriating guilt when she descends into dementia.) Bennett, who is openly gay, doesn't spare himself, or us, from the more earthly aspects of the story: Excrement enters into the picture (how could it not, when Miss Shepherd resorts to using plastic bags as her toilet most of the time), as does sexuality (Bennett's character has a steady stream of rent boys visiting him, several of which are played by "History Boys" alums). But underneath it all there's a glow of companionship, even kindness; and if Miss Shepherd is cranky and given to shows of stiff-necked dignity, she also reveals occasional glimpses at a fun-loving soul dwelling beneath all those filthy layers of charity shop clothes.

The film stems from the 1999 stage version, which also starred Maggie Smith and was directed by Nicholas Hytner (who also directed the stage play and who, it turns out, also lived in Bennett's neighborhood). Maggie Smith's authoritative take on the character comes from years of having lived with Miss Shepard in her own way, as an actor interpreting the role. Jennings came to the project via another play, an autobiographical work, in which Jennings also played Bennett. Thus was casting magic born.

We learn all this background thanks to the Blu-ray's raft of special features, which include a "Making Of," a featurette called "Playing the Lady" (in which Hytner enthuses about working with Smith, and Smith offers her insights on Miss Shepherd), a featurette about the film's visual effects, and an audio commentary done by Hytner. There are also a selection of deleted scenes.

Smith and Jennings are the meat and potatoes here, though, and they make this disc worth adding to your collection.

"The Lady in the Van"
Blu-ray
$34.99
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/discanddigital