The Lady in the Van (12A.)
Directed by Nicholas Hytner.
Starring Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Frances De La Tour, Roger Allam and Gwen Taylor. 104 mins
I could've sworn Benedict Cumberbatch was in this. (He's in everything else.) Even after it had been made abundantly clear that he wasn't, there was still a tinge of disappointment when Jennings appeared on screen in the role, the double role, of Alan Bennett. He's more than capable in the role but he seems out of place in what is essentially a gathering of Nationals Treasures. Alongside Bennett, there is, of course, but just Maggie Smith, but Miss Shepherd, the transient figure whose van was parked in Bennett's drive for 15 years and who has become posthumously a national figure through Bennett's various written incarnations of her, in book, on stage and for radio. These are figures who have ascended beyond the haggling and bartering of the critical marketplace, their merit is not up for debate. As you would expect of such a gathering, it is simultaneously tiresome and marvellous.
It is no surprise they couldn't get a big name to play Bennett: it's a thankless role. He has made himself his own caricature, his life is his turn. Playing him is the highbrow equivalent of doing a Frank Spencer impersonation. To be tired of Bennett is something akin to a capital crime; unless you are actually Alan Bennett in which case it is an endless and fruitful source of material. Here he presents himself as a cold, timid, uncaring old maid whose attitude to bowel movements is barely more tolerant than that of Kenneth Williams. This time he splits himself in two: the writer Bennett and the living-a-life Bennett. The pair bicker constantly, mainly about whether they are using Mrs Shepherd as a source of material.
The introduction of this dramatic conceit brings to mind the famous heckle at the Glasgow Empire when Bernie Winters appeared grinning through the curtain to join brother Mike on stage: “Christ!, there's two of them!” On film, as opposed to the stage, it may seem an incredibly arch device but it is used to explore the artifice and corruption of writing a true story. Bennett has written perceptively about real life figures – Proust, Kafka, Burgess, Blunt – but has always had the integrity to expose the shortcuts and deceits in the process. Self loathing is always hard to take but his sense of shame at what a writer does, leeching off of life while remaining at a distance from it, is an endearing quality.
The film Lady in The Van is exactly what you'd expect. The writing is funny, sharp and wise; Maggie Smith is majestically Maggie Smith, yet also touching real; the whole thing is as safe and timid as only a British film version of a stage play can be, but thoughtful, satisfying and honourable. When your teeth are as long as Bennett and Smith's it is too much to expect them to amaze you with something fresh and new; but they can still show why they deserve to be so revered.
The Lady in the Van (12A.)
Directed by Nicholas Hytner.
Starring Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Frances De La Tour, Roger Allam and Gwen Taylor. 104 mins
I could've sworn Benedict Cumberbatch was in this. (He's in everything else.) Even after it had been made abundantly clear that he wasn't, there was still a tinge of disappointment when Jennings appeared on screen in the role, the double role, of Alan Bennett. He's more than capable in the role but he seems out of place in what is essentially a gathering of Nationals Treasures. Alongside Bennett, there is, of course, but just Maggie Smith, but Miss Shepherd, the transient figure whose van was parked in Bennett's drive for 15 years and who has become posthumously a national figure through Bennett's various written incarnations of her, in book, on stage and for radio. These are figures who have ascended beyond the haggling and bartering of the critical marketplace, their merit is not up for debate. As you would expect of such a gathering, it is simultaneously tiresome and marvellous.
It is no surprise they couldn't get a big name to play Bennett: it's a thankless role. He has made himself his own caricature, his life is his turn. Playing him is the highbrow equivalent of doing a Frank Spencer impersonation. To be tired of Bennett is something akin to a capital crime; unless you are actually Alan Bennett in which case it is an endless and fruitful source of material. Here he presents himself as a cold, timid, uncaring old maid whose attitude to bowel movements is barely more tolerant than that of Kenneth Williams. This time he splits himself in two: the writer Bennett and the living-a-life Bennett. The pair bicker constantly, mainly about whether they are using Mrs Shepherd as a source of material.
The introduction of this dramatic conceit brings to mind the famous heckle at the Glasgow Empire when Bernie Winters appeared grinning through the curtain to join brother Mike on stage: “Christ!, there's two of them!” On film, as opposed to the stage, it may seem an incredibly arch device but it is used to explore the artifice and corruption of writing a true story. Bennett has written perceptively about real life figures – Proust, Kafka, Burgess, Blunt – but has always had the integrity to expose the shortcuts and deceits in the process. Self loathing is always hard to take but his sense of shame at what a writer does, leeching off of life while remaining at a distance from it, is an endearing quality.
The film Lady in The Van is exactly what you'd expect. The writing is funny, sharp and wise; Maggie Smith is majestically Maggie Smith, yet also touching real; the whole thing is as safe and timid as only a British film version of a stage play can be, but thoughtful, satisfying and honourable. When your teeth are as long as Bennett and Smith's it is too much to expect them to amaze you with something fresh and new; but they can still show why they deserve to be so revered.
