The Lady in the Van on 132 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The site's consensus states, "Led by a marvelous performance from Maggie Smith, "Lady in the Van" wrings poignant, often hilarious insight from its fact-based source material." On Metacritic the film holds a score of 70 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Guy Lodge, of "Variety" magazine, attended the worldwide premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. After the screening, he described Smith's portrayal of Mary Shepherd as "one of the most tailor-made leading roles of her late career". Even though, he says, the film is "low
The Lady in the Van by Chopin and others; some additional music was composed by George Fenton. It was released as a soundtrack album through Sony Classical Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment, on 6 November 2015 in the United Kingdom. This was followed by an 11 December release in the United States. The worldwide premiere was held on 12 September 2015, at the Toronto International Film Festival. This was followed by the UK premiere on 13 October at the 59th BFI London Film Festival; which, in turn, was succeeded by the US premiere on 15 November, at the 38th Denver International Film Festival.