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 Lake tale moves through a maze of puzzles and disclosures to its perfect conclusion. Marlowe makes a greater use of physical clues and ratiocination in this exploit than in any other. It is Chandler's masterpiece." The novel has also figured in fuller studies of Chandler’s work. One author comments that the book's title is an explicit reference to the Lady of the Lake, the enchantress of Arthurian romance, especially in making its focus a mysterious female who shifts between roles in different versions of the telling. This in turn mirrors the ambiguity between how the evidence seems to an observer and