Film Review: The Lady in the Van (dir. Hytner, 2015)

There’s really only one good reason to see The Lady in the Van, the new film adaptation of Alan Bennett’s hit 1999 play, and that’s Maggie Smith’s performance in the title role. Smith is one of those actresses at whom the dubious term “legend” is flung so readily that it’s become all too easy to take her for granted. More worryingly, the term also serves to obscure her incredible, enduring, inventive artistry as a performer. Smith demonstrates that artistry at every level in this film , going beyond her excellent recent work in Quartet (2012) to deliver one of her all-time great screen performances.

Playing Miss Mary Shepherd, the homeless woman who pitched up on Bennett’s Camden street, ended up moving into his driveway, and stayed there for some 15 years, Smith captures every shade of the character’s combined defensiveness and exhibitionism.  Considering that she played the role on stage, and on radio, the freshness of Smith’s work here is little short of amazing. Nothing seems set or forced; rather, every gesture and inflection feels organic and spontaneous. As Smith plays the role, the van seems an extension of  Miss Shepherd’s physical being. Splashing yellow paint over the vehicle, her Miss S. is clearly in her dotty element. Moreover, Smith goes beyond the individual character to create an iconic presence here:  an exasperating, admirable,  hilarious, and deeply moving portrait of eccentricity.    

The Lady in the Van badly needs the richness and depth that Smith brings to it, because, in pretty much all other aspects, the film is a dud. The movie was directed by Nicholas Hytner, who also directed the play in its original stage incarnation, and if ever there was a work that needed a director with more critical distance on the material then it’s this one. Hytner demonstrated his lack of judgement when it comes to Bennett’s writing as Artistic Director of the National Theatre when  he staged the playwright’s awful play People in 2011, a drafty whinge about the National Trust (!) that, if submitted by a new writer, would doubtless have been dumped in the nearest bin.  

Here, working from an adaptation by Bennett himself,  Hytner shows the same kind of unseemly reverence for Bennett’s writing. The meta-apparatus of the play (including the device of having two Bennetts as characters interacting and expressing his conflicted attitude to Miss Shepherd) is accentuated here. A rare expressive image -  such as Miss S. being raised into an ambulance - is spoiled by having Bennett (Alex Jennings) editorialising  over it in voice-over, telling us what we’re being shown.  Complete with pointless cameos from each of The History Boys actors, the end result is that the material seems even more smug, arch and masturbatory on screen than it did on stage.  

As in his Untold Stories memoir, Bennett’s self-presentation in The Lady in the Van treads a somewhat sneaky line, with apparent self-deprecation barely concealing hefty self-regard. On the one hand, he’s constantly flagging up the fact that his involvement with  Miss Shepherd  was based around his desire to exploit her as a colourful character in his writing. (The theme of the piece is, ultimately, the use that writers make of other people and real experience in their literary work.)  On the other hand, Bennett is really showing us just how much  more caring his attitude to Miss S. was when compared to most of his would-be liberal neighbours: whether he’s cleaning up her stools or facing off with her social worker (Cecilia Noble).  As often at his weakest, Bennett is subtly judgemental about everyone here, sometimes in the weirdest of ways.

   

Apart from Smith (and Gwen Taylor, who has a few effective moments as Bennett’s Mam), none of the cast really gets the opportunity to distinguish themselves. As the Camden neighbours, Frances de la Tour and Nicholas Burns drift in and out to little effect; while Deborah Findlay and Roger Allam keep popping up to contribute unfortunate remarks about Bennett’s writing - before we get to see a National Theatre audience whooping their approval at his latest play, just to confirm the playwright’s greatness, after all. There’s no doubt that Alex Jennings gives good Bennett(s), but his work here remains an impersonation, no more, no less. 

Lacking the zest of Bennett’s screen-writing at its best (1984's A Private Function, say), The Lady in the Van gets worse as it goes along, in terms of both story-telling and style. The ending – featuring a horrendous "ascension", a Day for Night flourish, and – yup – a cameo from Bennett himself –  is flagrantly embarrassing. Oddest of all, perhaps, is the strong suggestion that Bennett, now blissfully partnered, won’t need to access his "creative" side any more. Alongside Smith’s stunning performance, that’s pretty much the only good news that The Lady in the Van offers.

Film Review: Quartet (Hoffman, 2012)

“This isn’t a retirement home - it’s a madhouse!” quavers Maggie Smith, inimitably, as her character observes a Salsa class full of gyrating geriatrics in Quartet, Dustin Hoffman’s film adaptation of Ronald Harwood’s play. Playing Jean Horton - one-time opera icon and now reluctant resident to Beecham House, home for retired singers and musicians - Smith delivers her most varied and vibrant screen performance since My House in Umbria almost ten years ago. Yes, the role still permits Smith to retain her crown as Queen of the Bitchy Put-down, but it also goes beyond this familiarity, allowing her to play vulnerability, regret, self-doubt, and, ultimately, radiance. It’s a truly delightful performance, one of several that light up Hoffman’s slight but warm and engaging film, a work whose very subject is performance itself.

The eminent Jean’s arrival stirs things up at Beecham House because it reunites her with some old rivals and, also, some old cronies, namely the caring, muddled Cissy (Pauline Collins), the bawdy Wilf (Billy Connolly) and the taciturn Reg (Tom Courtenay), to whom Jean was briefly hitched before the marriage foundered after her confession of infidelity. Years before, these four performed together in a legendary production of Rigoletto. And with the home facing closure, and - wouldn’t you know? - a fundraising concert to celebrate Verdi’s birthday on the horizon, it’s not long before Cissy, Wilf and Reg are trying to persuade the resistant Jean to join them in performing the “Bella figlia dell’amore” quartet from the opera once again.

Making his directorial debut, Hoffman has done a pretty admirable job on Quartet. The movie is a much more handsome, elegant piece of work than was John Madden’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the “grey pound” phenomenon whose success it looks very likely to repeat. (Here, as there, Maggie Smith is cast as a woman in need of a hip replacement.) Harwood’s material is equally thin and unsubtle and his setting up of narrative dilemmas - will the home close? will Reg forgive Jean? will Jean join the quartet? - is basic to say the least. I imagine that the piece could be fairly excruciating on stage (and the movie itself plays the "isn't-it-hilarious-when-old-people-talk-about-sex?" card at least once too often for my taste), but Hoffman keeps it fluid here, cutting down on the obviousness a little. Harwood’s adaptation opens things up simply but effectively (there’s a preponderance of scenes set outside, in the attractive grounds of Hedsor House, Buckinghamshire) and the director shows wit in his framing of the action. The residents’ routines are briskly established in wry, rhythmic scenes scored to classical pieces, and the movie conveys a sense of the day-to-day life of the home, overseen by - yes - a jolly “ethnic” staff and run by one Dr. Cogan (the ubiquitous Sheridan Smith, very charming).

What makes Quartet especially pleasurable, though, is the respect and love that Hoffman clearly feels for those on screen. He’s filled the movie with veteran performers, not only actors but also “real” opera singers and musicians, and each makes a vivid impression no matter how limited their screen time. The cast interact superbly, from Collins’s sweetly optimistic Cissy - who’s given depth in the movie’s most moving moment - to a fabulously costumed Michael Gambon, who barks ferociously and preens gloriously as the home’s self-satisfied musical director. The affectionate tone is established from the lovely opening shot of Patricia Loveland at her piano and it’s sustained to the end: a truly touching closing credit sequence which matches all the performers with pictures of their younger selves. Quartet is about as predictable and as precious as a film can be, but the wit and spirit of its cast - and their director's fond gaze upon them - manage to turn it into something more: an actors’ symphony.

London Film Festival Review: Quartet (dir. Hoffman)

“This isn’t a retirement home - it’s a madhouse!” quavers Maggie Smith, inimitably, as her character observes a Salsa class full of gyrating geriatrics in Quartet, Dustin Hoffman’s film adaptation of Ronald Harwood’s play. Playing Jean Horton - one-time opera icon and now reluctant resident to Beecham House, home for retired singers and musicians - Smith delivers her most varied and vibrant screen performance since My House in Umbria almost ten years ago. Yes, the role still permits Smith to retain her crown as Queen of the Bitchy Put-down, but it also goes beyond this familiarity, allowing her to play vulnerability, regret, self-doubt, and, ultimately, radiance. It’s a truly delightful performance, one of several that light up Hoffman’s slight but warm and engaging film, a work whose very subject is performance itself.

The eminent Jean’s arrival stirs things up at Beecham House because it reunites her with some old rivals and, also, some old cronies, namely the caring, muddled Cissy (Pauline Collins), the bawdy Wilf (Billy Connolly) and the taciturn Reg (Tom Courtenay), to whom Jean was briefly hitched before the marriage foundered after her confession of infidelity. Years before, these four performed together in a legendary production of Rigoletto. And with the home facing closure, and - wouldn’t you know? - a fundraising concert to celebrate Verdi’s birthday on the horizon, it’s not long before Cissy, Wilf and Reg are trying to persuade the resistant Jean to join them in performing the “Bella figlia dell’amore” quartet from the opera once again.

Making his directorial debut, Hoffman has done a pretty admirable job on Quartet. The movie is a much more handsome, elegant piece of work than was John Madden’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the “grey pound” phenomenon whose success it looks very likely to repeat. (Here, as there, Maggie Smith is cast as a woman in need of a hip replacement.) Harwood’s material is equally thin and unsubtle and his setting up of narrative dilemmas - will the home close? will Reg forgive Jean? will Jean join the quartet? - is basic to say the least. I imagine that the piece could be fairly excruciating on stage (and the movie itself plays the "isn't-it-hilarious-when-old-people-talk-about-sex?" card at least once too often), but Hoffman keeps it fluid here, cutting down on the obviousness a little. Harwood’s adaptation opens things up simply but effectively (there’s a preponderance of scenes set outside, in the attractive grounds of Hedsor House, Buckinghamshire) and the director shows wit in his framing of the action. The residents’ routines are briskly established in wry, rhythmic scenes scored to classical pieces, and the movie conveys a sense of the day-to-day life of the home, overseen by - yes - a jolly “ethnic” staff and run by one Dr. Cogan (the ubiquitous Sheridan Smith, very charming).

What makes Quartet especially pleasurable, though, is the respect and love that Hoffman clearly feels for those on screen. He’s filled the movie with veteran performers, not only actors but also “real” opera singers and musicians, and each makes a vivid impression no matter how limited their screen time. The cast interact superbly, from Collins’s sweet, optimistic Cissy - who’s given depth in the movie’s most moving moment - to a fabulously costumed Michael Gambon, who barks ferociously and preens gloriously as the home’s self-satisfied musical director. The affectionate tone is established from the lovely opening shot of Patricia Loveland at her piano and it’s sustained to the end: a truly touching closing credit sequence which matches all the performers with pictures of their younger selves. Quartet is about as predictable and as precious as a film can be, but the wit and spirit of its cast - and their director's fond gaze upon them - manage to turn it into something more: an actors’ symphony.


Quartet is released in the UK on the 4th January 2013.

Film Review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Madden, 2011)

A group of Britishers find themselves variously disturbed, challenged, charmed and changed by a period spent at an establishment in India…? As coincidence would have it, I re-watched Black Narcissus (1947) shortly before seeing The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011). And, well, the contrast between the two movies is marked, to say the least. For what’s turbulent, mysterious, unnerving and - frankly - erotic in Powell and Pressburger’s film comes out fairly safe, benign, comic and cosy in John Madden’s offering. Watching these two films, it’s easy to conclude that British cinema hasn’t so much progressed as regressed within the past 65 years. And yet the new film - indifferently reviewed but number one at the box office - has some elements of appeal.

Based on Deborah Moggach’s novel These Foolish Things, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel deposits its group of ageing-to-elderly characters (played by Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Penelope Wilton, Bill Nighy, Celia Imrie and Ronald Pickup) at the Bangalore hotel of the title, a ramshackle guesthouse presided over by the eager though put-upon Sonny (a game but over-effusive Dev Patel). The group are there for a variety of contrived reasons - landing a job, having a hip replacement, tracking down an old lover, getting laid - and the film puts them through a variety of changes, some less predictable than others, it must be said.

India’s impact upon the English has of course been a popular topic for novelists and filmmakers, but The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel can’t be said to add a great deal to the culture-clash theme. At times - notably an unfortunate scene in which Dench’s character advises a group of Indian workers on what constitutes a good telephone manner - the picture acts as though postcolonialism had never happened. It’s not offensive, exactly: just oblivious.

Visually, the movie is mediocre - sallow-looking and poorly lit for the most part - and the script, by Ol Parker, feels under-worked. Wispy plot strands dangle loosely, and the tedious caste-crossing love story that constitutes Patel’s part of the proceedings generates zero interest. Indeed, the treatment of sexual and class issues leaves something to be desired. The melancholy gay character, “sympathetically” presented as he is, achieves a long-awaited moment of fulfilment and redemption - only to keel over dead a few minutes later. And it’s interesting that it’s the working-class character - dropping aitches and “comic” racist epithets - who’s initially made the biggest bigot, all the better to reveal her heart-of-gold by sympathetically connecting with an “untouchable” later in the film.

That The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel remains moderately enjoyable despite its obvious shortcomings is down to its deluxe cast, who contribute some believable human touches to their characterisations. Dench brings her special radiance - emotional transparency with a hint of something secret in reserve - to Evelyn, the cautious widow emerging from her comfort zone to embrace the possibility of change. Walking the teeming streets, she looks both touchingly vulnerable and heroically alert to new experiences. Quavering in Cockney, Maggie Smith reveals Muriel’s skills and sympathy as briskly and unsentimentally as she’s able. Tom Wilkinson underplays beautifully as he suggests the deep regrets that have haunted his character for decades. And Penelope Wilton and Bill Nighy sketch a marital history that comes out more nuanced, interesting and authentic than the Tom-and-Gerri love-in in Mike Leigh’s Another Year (2010).

Some of the performers aren’t so lucky - though enjoyable enough, Imrie and Pickup get most of the broad comedy bits, while Diana Hardcastle (responsible for one of my favourite moments on stage last year in A Delicate Balance with Wilton) is wasted as Carol, the lonely woman who Pickup finally scores with. Even so, it’s pleasurable to see such a strong British cast together on screen and the film does at least have the wit to play off of the actors’ previous collaborations at times; in particular, there’s a lovely brief exchange between Smith and Dench at the end in which the spirit of their history of film and stage partnerships is felt, ever so lightly.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel doesn’t have the charm of a comparable starry exercise in elderly empowerment such as Franco Zeffirelli's Tea with Mussolini (1999). But through the artistry of its actors, a fairly shallow enterprise gets a little bit of soul.