More to Maggie Smith’s ‘Lady in the Van’ than meets eye, or nose
The Dowager Countess of Grantham has taken to relieving herself into plastic bags.
Moving as far from the formidable countess as possible, Smith stars as a cantankerous, seemingly unhinged old woman who lives in squalor in a van that she has parked in an upwardly mobile middle-class neighborhood of London.
Ursula (Frances de la Tour), the widow of composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, resides in the area, as does playwright Bennett (Alex Jennings), who lives to regret extending a helping hand to the ornery and malodorous woman who calls herself Mary Shepherd.
The story is narrated by Bennett, or, to be precise, one of the two Bennetts in Nicholas Hytner’s film.
Most of the time, she’s disagreeable and eccentric as she moves her battered home from parking spot to parking spot in the neighborhood.
While “The Lady in the Van” is one of those quaint and quirky little films of which the British are inordinately fond, Americans will find it equally endearing, with the exception of the hideously over-the-top final scene.
Bennett’s screenplay enables him to add useful details to the story that he could only imply in the original play, but both onstage and onscreen, Smith’s performance is not only virtuosic but indispensable in grounding the various loose threads of the story.
By the end of the film, we have learned several key details of Mary’s life, but they aren’t really necessary in endearing her to us.
David Wiegand is an assistant managing editor and the TV critic of The San Francisco Chronicle.