Film

The Lady in the Van

A film about the 15-year relationship between playwright Alan Bennett and Miss Shepherd, an eccentric woman who parked her van in his driveway and never left. It's funny and sad in equal measure, driven by two magnificent performances and Bennett's acute observations about class, charity, and the distance between neighbours who share space but not understanding.

TMDb rating3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love dry, affectionate comedy about eccentrics who refuse to be tidied up, and you enjoy a story where the humour and the awkwardness sit side by side, much like Bennett's own diaries.

Skip it if you want a brisk plot with a clear forward momentum, since this one meanders through a long, quirky domestic situation and leans on mood and small exchanges rather than events.

What it asks of you: Settle in for about 104 minutes of unhurried, observational pacing, with a light touch that shifts gently between laughter and something more wistful, and it rewards patience more than attention spans.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Calendar Girls2003

A similarly warm British film about unlikely friendship and everyday heroism. Judi Dench and Helen Mirren anchor a story about ordinary women doing something extraordinary, with humour that never undercuts the genuine affection at its heart.

But The tone can feel a touch soft-centred compared to Bennett's sharper edge, and the emotional beats are more predictable.

Calendar Girls poster

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel2012

Maggie Smith and a stellar cast explore ageing, displacement, and found family in India. It has the same blend of wry humour and surprising tenderness, asking what home means when you're no longer young.

But It borders on whimsy in places, and some subplots feel more sitcom than drama.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel poster

I Give It a Year2013

A sharper, messier take on how people actually relate to each other across difference. It has Bennett's gift for observing social awkwardness and the comedy of conflicting needs, minus the sentimentality.

But It's crueller and less forgiving. If you want warmth, this might feel too cynical.

I Give It a Year poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Lady in the Van

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Grey Gardens1976

Both examine the strange intimacy between people trapped together by circumstance, and both refuse to let us dismiss their subjects as simply mad or pathetic.

A documentary portrait of two women—a mother and daughter—living in squalor and isolation in a decaying mansion. Like *The Lady in the Van*, it's about eccentricity, class, and the intimate cruelty of long cohabitation, but it's unflinching where Bennett's film is kind.

But It's a real documentary about real decay and real mental illness. There's no narrative comfort, no redemptive ending. It can feel exploitative, and it's sometimes difficult to watch.

Grey Gardens poster
More like this (7)

Filthy Rich2016

A limited series about the complicated bond between a wealthy widow and her housekeeper. It explores class, dependency, and genuine affection with real intelligence and neither party treated as a saint or villain.

But The pacing is slow and deliberate. It asks for patience with characters who don't always behave sympathetically.

Filthy Rich poster

Tenko1981

A British drama series about women in a Japanese POW camp, created by the writer of Upstairs Downstairs. It shares Bennett's interest in how ordinary people navigate impossible proximity and moral ambiguity over a long stretch of time.

But It's dated in production style and can feel soap-operatic. The subject matter is heavy, not light.

Tenko poster

Driving Miss Daisy1989

Perhaps the essential film about two people bound together by circumstance, race, and the slow accumulation of genuine feeling. It moves across decades with quiet intelligence.

But It's been criticised for softening the real tensions of its historical moment. Some find it too genteel for its subject.

Driving Miss Daisy poster

The Remains of the Day1993

Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson explore the distance between people living in the same house. It's a masterclass in unspoken emotion and the cost of maintaining a professional distance from life.

But It's austere and slow. Very little is said, and some viewers find that frustrating rather than moving.

The Remains of the Day poster

A Fish Called Wanda1988

A crime caper with Maggie Smith in a smaller role, but it shares that gleeful British comedy sensibility where everyone is slightly selfish and nothing is quite as it seems. Pure entertainment.

But It's pure entertainment—if you're looking for depth or emotional weight, this is a very different film.

A Fish Called Wanda poster

A Suitable Boy2020

Both are period pieces about outsiders—people who don't quite fit the social categories meant to contain them—and both find comedy and tragedy in the attempt to do so.

Mira Nair's adaptation of Vikram Seth's novel focuses on a young widow navigating family and class in post-independence India. It has the same sharp eye for social comedy and the way people negotiate belonging, but on an epic scale and in a completely different cultural context.

But It's a six-hour commitment and deeply rooted in a specific world. If you don't engage with the detail of Indian family politics and culture, it will feel slow.

A Suitable Boy poster

Happy-Go-Lucky2008

Both are interested in ordinary London life and the comedy of one person's way of being disrupting everyone else's routine—except here it's approached with affection rather than exasperation.

Mike Leigh's film about an optimistic woman and the various people she collides with as she moves through London. It has Bennett's anthropological eye for how people relate across class and temperament, but it's lighter and more forgiving of human mess.

But The main character's relentless cheerfulness can grate. Some viewers find her naive rather than lovable, and the lack of plot structure frustrates those wanting traditional narrative momentum.

Happy-Go-Lucky poster

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Recommended by

Victoria & Abdul, Crooked House, Quartet, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Last Chance Harvey, Finding Your Feet