cinehunch
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
01
Why this pick
Like The Lady in the Van, it finds rueful humour and unexpected tenderness in a prickly outsider, allowing an initially abrasive character study to deepen into a compassionate portrait of connection.
02
Why this pick
Its odd-couple bond between a reserved writer and an unassuming older woman balances dry wit with accumulating sadness and humanity, much like Bennett’s wary relationship with Miss Shepherd.
03
Why this pick
Mike Leigh’s unhurried, observant approach similarly locates comedy and ache in everyday British interactions, especially in its compassionate attention to a difficult, lonely woman on the social margins.
04
Why this pick
For the gentle, humane uplift and affection for an older woman’s individual dignity, this has a similarly polished British sensibility, though with a more openly hopeful fairy-tale trajectory.
05
Why this pick
Its patient, deceptively simple storytelling shares the pleasure of spending time with a stubborn, unconventional elder, gradually revealing emotional depth through small encounters rather than plot machinery.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
Our curator needs a little longer. Please come back shortly.
No confident matches yet. Try our personal film finder.
01 / THE STORY
''The Lady in the Van'' tells the true story of Alan Bennett's strained friendship with Miss Mary Shepherd, a crabby, eccentric and insanitary homeless woman whom Bennett befriended in the 1970s before allowing her to park her Bedford Vehicles van in the driveway of his London Borough of Camden home "for three months". She stayed there for 15 years. As the story develops Bennett learns that Miss Shepherd is really Margaret Fairchild, a gifted former pupil of the pianist Alfred Cortot. She had played Chopin in a The Proms, tried to become a nun, was committed to an institution by her brother, escaped, had an accident when her van was hit by a motorcyclist for whose death she believed herself to blame, and thereafter lived in fear of arrest.
Showing saved details. Some information may be out of date.
02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
Miss Shepherd
Jehovah's Witness
Underwood
Pauline
Mr. Fairchild
Theatre Director
Lois, Social Worker
Mrs. Perry
