The Lady in the Van Magazine"'s Elise Nakhnikian said the film is all about the "fastidious, somewhat timid, and reclusive playwright Alan Bennett", and stated the film's "annoying glibness is neatly summarized" by the line: "In life, going downhill is an uphill job". The Lady in the Van The Lady in the Van is a 2015 British comedy-drama film directed by Nicholas Hytner, and starring Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings, based on the novel of the same name created by Alan Bennett. It was written by Alan Bennett, and it tells the (mostly) true story of his interactions with Mary Shepherd, an elderly woman who
The Wind in the Willows (1996 film) dialogue in the entire film- he is shown with a mouth and sings a couple of lines of the first song. When the film first appeared in the U.S. under its original title, it got pushed aside due to distributors' problems and very little promotional material was published. Takings in the UK had been low because the film had largely been shown only in the afternoon. Subsequently, New York papers wondered why such a wonderful children's film was dumped by distributors. "The New York Times" published a very positive review by Lawrence Van Gelder. Yet, to add to the confusion,