I had seen the play and enjoyed it, both the writing and the excellent acting of Dame Maggie Smith. Believe me, this so-called movie is not a film at all. It is a star vehicle for a tremendously bravura performance by the leading actress, almost like a studio of the thirties giving one of its' leading ladies a blank cheque.
The plot is simple. An old lady (Maggie Smith) travels around North London parking her battered old van and living in squalor in the same place for months on end. Finally when the yellow lines are painted, Alan Bennett the writer (Alex Jennings) allows her to park in his drive - and she stays for fifteen years! The relationship between the two is the heart of the screenplay, or it should be. But, no, we have to open it up as it is a film, and it loses its way dramatically! It becomes a minor mystery story as we discover bit by bit who she was and why she was living as she was. All of which was found out only after her death, as the film says at the end! So the interchange between the two main protagonists gets lost amidst cinematic clichés and other characters putting in their two pennyworth, including Bennett's mother. There is also an attempt (pretty poor it must be said) by the writer to find himself in his writing. Cue a very seedy rent boyish sub theme and so-called coming out, which was not really present in the play and is almost gratuitous and forced in the film.
And why do we have the stage device of two Bennetts - one the writer and the other the 'living' - on screen at once? As one reviewer said, could we not have had a voice over? It is silly and looks terribly stagey as the rest of the film tries to open out and be realistic. All in all a right mess that is not a film at all.
As a postscript, Mr Bennett and his concerns about 'northernness', old ladies (especially his mother) and the details of toilet behaviour are just old hat. What made them funny in the 70s, 80s, and 90s are now almost forgotten, and this piece seems to have been made at least a decade too late. How anyone under 55 can relate to it is beyond me! Your name is on the writing credits, Mr Bennett, and you have ruined your own work, or did the 'script doctors' get at it? Oh dear, what an utter mess.
The plot is simple. An old lady (Maggie Smith) travels around North London parking her battered old van and living in squalor in the same place for months on end. Finally when the yellow lines are painted, Alan Bennett the writer (Alex Jennings) allows her to park in his drive - and she stays for fifteen years! The relationship between the two is the heart of the screenplay, or it should be. But, no, we have to open it up as it is a film, and it loses its way dramatically! It becomes a minor mystery story as we discover bit by bit who she was and why she was living as she was. All of which was found out only after her death, as the film says at the end! So the interchange between the two main protagonists gets lost amidst cinematic clichés and other characters putting in their two pennyworth, including Bennett's mother. There is also an attempt (pretty poor it must be said) by the writer to find himself in his writing. Cue a very seedy rent boyish sub theme and so-called coming out, which was not really present in the play and is almost gratuitous and forced in the film.
And why do we have the stage device of two Bennetts - one the writer and the other the 'living' - on screen at once? As one reviewer said, could we not have had a voice over? It is silly and looks terribly stagey as the rest of the film tries to open out and be realistic. All in all a right mess that is not a film at all.
As a postscript, Mr Bennett and his concerns about 'northernness', old ladies (especially his mother) and the details of toilet behaviour are just old hat. What made them funny in the 70s, 80s, and 90s are now almost forgotten, and this piece seems to have been made at least a decade too late. How anyone under 55 can relate to it is beyond me! Your name is on the writing credits, Mr Bennett, and you have ruined your own work, or did the 'script doctors' get at it? Oh dear, what an utter mess.