Miss Shepherd, the titular lady — played without a trace of self-regard or emotional grasping by Maggie Smith — does not have much of a life. It’s hard to get much going when you live in a van, harder still when you’re old and slightly daft and imprisoned by your own crushing sense of guilt. But then, neither does Alan (Alex Jennings, a sort of English Truman Capote), the middle-aged man who winds up serving as host to her rolling residence — and also, our narrator. He’s a playwright so locked within himself that he must collect his material second-hand, unless, of course, it concerns his mother. (There are lots of prisons in this world.) Mam is his first, last, and best subject — until he meets the needy, smelly, and just slightly mysterious Miss Shepherd. Remarkably, the film does not exist to unravel her mystery to anything like completion. Nor does it intend for its comfortably ensconced narrator to learn some grand wisdom from the mostly uninvited, mostly ungrateful, and decidedly uncomfortable guest in his driveway. (Unless the frank, unhappy observation that “Caring is about shit” can count as wisdom.) In the end, the mystery doesn’t matter except insofar as it reveals the person at its heart, and it is Alan’s experience of that person that makes his account significant. Directed by Nicholas Hytner. (2015) — Matthew Lickona
This movie is not currently in theaters.