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The Lady in the Van
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (4th May 2016). |
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The Film
 Although Maggie Smith (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) is still admittedly a national treasure, an outspoken eccentric Smith post- Downton Abbey – no matter how "odiferous" the film depicts her – has lost is novelty value, and the "mostly true" story of The Lady of the Van on film may be of more interest to fans of the play and playwright Alan Bennett's (Prick Up Your Ears) brand of reflection than as a film itself. A screen adaptation of Bennett's stage adaptation of his tangential memoir of the same name, the film reunites the stage version's director and frequent Bennett collaborator Nicholas Hytner (The Madness of King George) and its star Smith along with Alex Jennings (The Wings of the Dove) as Bennett himself (having played the playwright in another Hytner-directed autobiographical Bennett play). The adaptation of Bennett's tangential memoir volume of the same name finds the playwright (Jennings) moving into a house on Gloucester Crescent, a street that has played host to eccentric homeless woman Miss Shepherd (Smith) who lives out of her van which she parks in front of homes – under the guidance of the Virgin Mary – and moving it not when the owners badger her but when their own habits clash with her own. Bennett's neighbors tolerate the woman out of a sense of Christian charity but otherwise attempt to ignore her presence. When Miss Shepherd parks in front of Bennett's apartment and intrudes into his existence, he likewise attempts to ignore her even as he is of two minds about it. The writer half of him resists the urge to write about her while the living half (both of which appear simultaneously onscreen thanks to digital trickery more sophisticated than the old school split-screening of The Patty Duke Show or even Dead Ringers) insists on the separateness of their cohabitation even as the neighbors come to refer to Miss Shepherd as his friend (in the absence of any other significant other). When the council tries to "evict" her by imposing parking restrictions on the broken down van, Bennett allows Miss Shepherd to move it into his driveway until she gets herself sorted out; whereupon even the visiting social worker (Cecilia Noble) regards him as her caregiver. What Bennett had anticipated as a stay of a few months slips into fifteen years, with the writing and living sides of Bennett becoming concerned about the lady's health as well as the nagging questions of both her present circumstances – her fervent prayer and repeated seeking of absolution for some past sin – and the mystery of her past (with rumors of her having been a nun and an asylum escapee). The writer in him maintains a journal about the lady while insisting that he has no plans to write about her, but it gradually becomes apparent that he is as reluctant as his living half to look back on the experience and how his caregiving compares to what he regards as his "failure" to take care of his mother (Gwen Taylor) who insisted on living on her own in their family home until she slipped away into dementia, no longer recognizing him when she went the same kind of nursing home care that Miss Shepherd so fears. As the lady's health deteriorates, Bennett must delve into her past in search of a relative or other caregiver lest she die unknown and forever a mystery. The cast also includes a who's who of British prestige picture regulars phoning in the whimsy as peripheral characters, from Frances de la Tour (Mr. Holmes) as the widow of composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, Russell Tovey (Being Human) & Dominic Cooper (Miss You Already) as two of the many actors whose late night visits allude to Bennett's sexuality while having Miss Shepherd suspect him of communism, Jim Broadbent (Gangs of New York) as a seedy man blackmailing the Lady, David Calder (Rush) as the Lady's estranged brother, to a cameo by James Corden (Into the Woods) spoiled in its entirety in the various trailers and TV spots. 
Video
As expected, Sony offer up a typically strong 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen encode with as much texture in the costumes as the brick and stonework, the peeling paint of the lady's van, and the subtle aging make-up of both Jennings and Smith over the film's timespan. 
Audio
The region free Blu-ray offers an array of audio and subtitle options: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, French DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Portuguese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1 along with optional English, English HoH, Bahasa Indonesian, Chinese (Traditional), French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai subtitles. The 5.1 mix is front-oriented with city sounds and distant noises in the surrounds along with the subtler parts of George Fenton's (The Company of Wolves) score. 
Extras
As with Sony's all-region Blu-ray of Grandma, the extras feature optional subtitles in a number of languages (in this case, English, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai). In the audio commentary by director Nicholas Hytner, the director - who lived on the same street as Bennett and the "Lady in the Van" - discusses his working relationship with Bennett, as well as the narrative device of two Alan Bennetts, the stage production, and how he had previously worked with Smith and Jennings on a stage production of The Importance of Being Earnest. He discusses the differences between the film and the play, the film and play and fact, and reveals other biographical aspects of the film; for instance, the film's composer Fenton had been one of the many actors who had decorated Bennett's home on Gloucester Crescent and also had become acquainted with Miss Shepherd.  "Playing the Lady: Maggie Smith as Miss Shepherd" (6:22) looks at Smith's career and Bennett having adapted the play with the actress in mind. Smith also offers her interpretation of the role and her impressions of the lady as both vile yet independent and dignified. "The Making of Lady in the Van" (13:46) also contextualizes the film around the working relationship between Bennett and Hytner (who had initially collaborated on a production of The Wind in the Willows), Bennett's source memoir for the London Review of Books, the 1999 stage play, and the idea to cast Jennings after he had played Bennett in another of his autobiographical plays. "The Visual Effects" (7:29) covers the twinning effects, highlighting the work of actor George Taylor (You & I) who doubled for Jennings on both sides of the screen before being digitally painted out of the frames. Also included are three rather inconsequential deleted scenes (4:34) and the film's theatrical trailer (1:58).
Overall
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