In a sentenceMaggie Smith moves into the drive and Alan Bennett writes it down twice
Camden Town, the early 1970s. The writer Alan Bennett (Alex Jennings) moves into a house on Gloucester Crescent and finds a van already parked in the street, home to Miss Shepherd (Maggie Smith), an elderly woman with firm instructions from the Virgin Mary and no patience for anyone’s kindness. The crescent is full of liberal households, Ursula Vaughan Williams (Frances de la Tour) and Rufus (Roger Allam) among them, who leave food at the van door and quietly wish it gone. When parking restrictions arrive, Bennett offers her his drive for a few months. She moves in, van and all, and shows no sign of leaving. Bennett, who is also visiting his failing mother (Gwen Taylor) in Yorkshire, writes it all down, and argues with himself about whether he should.
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Maggie Smith is magnificent as the woman who parked in Alan Bennett’s drive and stayed fifteen years. The film around her is gentle, tidy and rather pleased with itself, and it explains every feeling the moment she has made it plain.
Alan Bennett has been telling this story for a long time, first on the page and then on the stage, where Nicholas Hytner directed Maggie Smith in it in 1999. Now the three of them have made the film, and the tagline calls it “a mostly true story”, which is fair warning. A homeless woman called Miss Shepherd parked her van outside Bennett’s house in Gloucester Crescent, Camden; he let her move it into his drive for a few months; she stayed fifteen years. Smith is reason enough to watch. The rest is pleasant, soft and far more comfortable than it needs to be.
She plays Miss Shepherd without a flicker of appeal for our sympathy. The voice is clipped and certain, the eyes dart for the next advantage, and she takes every kindness as a right and every question as an impertinence. She smells, and the film says so, and she is cross about being told. What makes it more than a turn is the stillness in between, a woman sitting alone in the van who has plainly been somebody else and is not going to tell us who.
Alex Jennings plays Bennett as two men who share a study, the one who lives the life and the one who writes it down, and they bicker about which of them is the coward. Jennings has the voice exactly, the Leeds vowels sanded flat, the hands that never know what to do. For twenty minutes the device is a good joke about the writer’s guilt. Then the film starts using it to tell us what we have just seen. Meanwhile Bennett’s mother (Gwen Taylor) is failing in Yorkshire, visited out of duty, and the film draws the line between the two old women and then has Bennett say it aloud in case we missed it.
Andrew Dunn shoots the crescent in soft, warm light that makes Camden look like a village, and the van, which Miss Shepherd repaints herself with a brush and a tin of yellow, is the only loud thing in any frame. John Beard fills its interior with carrier bags in layers like rock strata. Natalie Ward dresses Smith in coats that look slept in, which they have been, with a hat on top like an afterthought. George Fenton’s score is piano and strings and does not push. Tariq Anwar cuts the two Bennetts’ conversations so that they feel like one man thinking, which is a harder trick than it looks.
The moment that got us was not a large one. Early on, Bennett watches from his window as Miss Shepherd settles herself in the van for the night, and Smith, with nobody left to perform for, lets the certainty drain out of her face for a few seconds before the door shuts. We were moved more than we expected to be, and a little annoyed that the film had not trusted us with more of that and fewer of the jokes about the lavatory.
The street is full of good actors with nothing to do. Frances de la Tour, as the composer’s widow Ursula Vaughan Williams, and Roger Allam, as a neighbour called Rufus, are there to be liberal and embarrassed, and they do it well, but they are a sketch. Jim Broadbent turns up at night as Underwood, a man who taps on the van and wants money, and the film lets him be frightening twice before setting him aside. Several of the young cast of The History Boys, Dominic Cooper and James Corden among them, pass through in parts the size of a postage stamp, which will please anyone who saw that film and puzzle everyone else.
The last ten minutes take a flight we will not describe and did not believe. Against Hytner and Bennett’s earlier films together, The Madness of King George (1994) and The History Boys (2006), this is the slightest, the one most content to be charming. It runs 104 minutes and carries a 12A, and it is a good evening for anyone who wants to watch Maggie Smith be impossible at length. Just do not expect it to let her be sad for long.
The reviews split almost down the middle, with a slight lean towards approval, and on one point there is no argument at all: Maggie Smith. Every critic who reaches a verdict praises her Miss Shepherd, mostly for comic irascibility that gives way to something sadder, and several call her the main reason to watch. Those who like the film find it a warm, sharp comedy about an unlikely bond that deepens as it goes.
The reservations gather around tone. Many find it twee or cosy, several say the stage origins show, and the whimsical final scene is faulted even by critics who otherwise enjoy themselves. The spread is wide, from four-star notices to outright dismissals. The harshest come from American outlets: Vulture calls it a tedious distortion of Bennett’s diaries, Slant finds it glib and emotionally distant, and The Wrap thinks Bennett himself takes up too much of the story. Even they exempt Smith.
Bradshaw finds the film very enjoyable and poignant. He singles out Maggie Smith’s terrifically good performance as Miss Shepherd for praise.
Read the full review →The review finds the film a cosy, comic success. It particularly praises Maggie Smith’s performance.
Read the full review →Sexton considers the film the definitive version of Bennett’s story, despite an indulgent final scene. He singles out Maggie Smith’s glorious performance as its chief strength.
Read the full review →Keegan finds the film a sharp, charming comedy whose stage-to-screen translation occasionally feels unnatural. She especially praises Maggie Smith’s layered portrayal of Miss Shepherd and her contradictory qualities.
Read the full review →Nathan finds the film a fine, moving comedy that gradually deepens into an exploration of human bonds. He particularly praises Maggie Smith’s comic yet perceptive portrayal, which gives Miss Shepherd emotional depth.
Read the full review →The review presents the film as an appealing comedy about human connection. It singles out Maggie Smith as ideal in the central role.
Read the full review →
The History BoysHytner and Bennett at their best, with the same young cast given proper parts.
Talking Heads · not reviewed yetBennett’s television monologues; lonely people in small rooms, no explaining, far sharper.
Harold and MaudeAnother impossible old woman teaching a buttoned-up man how to live, with better music.
Umberto D.De Sica’s pensioner and his dog; poverty and dignity without a single joke to soften it.
PhilomenaJudi Dench and a prickly writer on the road; the same odd couple, more at stake.
