The Lady in the Van

Alan Bennett: The houses in the Crescent were built as villas for the Victorian middle class and their basements are now being enlarged by couples who are liberal in outlook, but not easy with their new-found prosperity. Guilt in a word. Which means that in varying degrees, they tolerate Miss Shepherd. Their consciences absolved by her presence.

The Lady in the Van, directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by Alan Bennett about his real life experience, tells the story of a homeless woman (Maggie Smith) of questionable sanity who lived in Bennett's (Jim Broadbent) driveway for fifteen years. She is a study in contradictions: a woman who professes religious visions while treating everyone around her like second class citizens, who professes independence while manipulating a community into supporting her, who professes innocence while trying to escape the mistakes of her past. While she struggles with her own demons, her presence forces the whole neighborhood to examine just how much they're willing to help their fellow man, especially when their fellow man is so cantankerous and ungrateful.

While the plot rambles a bit and Bennett indulges his own introspection more than I care for, The Lady in the Van is an interesting character study of Miss Shepherd, an unusual and sometimes unlikeable woman that shows us everything that makes us uncomfortable around the homeless. The neighborhood she parks her van in, which is populated by self-professed liberals, is confronted with their own hypocrisies as they alternate between giving her charity and attempting non-confrontational methods of forcing her to leave. Bennett, another interesting, often contradictory character, attributes his own charity to timidity but as we see the lengths he goes to to take care of Miss Shepherd it becomes difficult to believe. Smith and Broadbent share a marvelous chemistry onscreen and Smith manages to make Miss Shepherd into someone we love at the same time she is driving us and Bennett crazy.

The Lady in the Van is a quiet film about a woman who, under normal circumstances, would be ignored and ultimately forgotten. Bennett's story of the woman who lived in his driveway shows us the charity we perform has as great an impact on us as it does on its recipients and that every person has a story to tell. It's a film well worth watching, if just to make us question whether we would really sacrifice the cleanliness of our bathroom for the dignity of a person who will never say thank you.