The Lady in the Van Reviews

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I’m not sure if I really cared about this story but there is no doubt that Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings both delivered some really solid performances. Indeed, in contrary to the rest of the movie, Smith and Jennings were never really particularly kind to each other but it made their characters so much more interesting to behold. Without them, I seriously wonder if it would have worked at all since, even if the material was not bad, the tone was just too quirky for me. On top of that, they constantly focused on the fact that the past of this woman must be so interesting. As a result, they added a couple of twists regarding her past but, to be honest, I could have done without them. The first one, the fact that Miss Shepherd was apparently a talented pianist, was actually ruined by the opening scene. The second one, the fact that Miss Shepherd was at some point involved in a fatal car accident, was actually seriously predictable and therefore rather anti-climactic. Eventually, the argument made by this movie was that each homeless man or woman might have a fascinating background but is it the only reason why we should actually care about them? In fact, that’s actually the opposite of how Maggie Smith played the character and the main point of interest, at least, as far as I was concerned, was the relationship between this man and this woman. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, thanks to Smith and Jennings, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.