Regal Cinema Melton: Film guide January 28 to February 4 - Melton Times

Met Opera Encore: Turandot Sunday at 3.30pm.

The Lady in the Van (12A) Maggie Smith reprises the role she played in Alan Bennett’s hit stage play as the elderly Miss Shepherd, a lady who occupied a decrepit Bedford van parked in Bennett’s Camden Town driveway for some 15 years. Having directed the play, Nicholas Hytner (The Crucible, The Madness Of King George) now helms Bennett’s screen adaptation to delightful, multilayered effect. Miss Shepherd is no slave to personal hygiene or polite diplomacy. Smith’s wonderful take on this cantankerous English eccentric is well matched by Alex Jennings, who plays Bennett as he becomes Miss Shepherd’s somewhat bemused benefactor and astringent observer. Roger Allam, Frances de la Tour and James Corden (star of Bennett’s The History Boys) also add considerably to this joyous, socially contemplative comedy drama. Friday and Wednesday at 6pm, Saturday at 2pm and 5pm, Monday at 8.30pm, Tuesday at 5pm and Thursday at 8.45pm.

Joy (15) In 1990, single mother Joy Mangano invented the Miracle Mop, a household product that became a bestseller on the QVC shopping channel. Hardly the makings of a Hollywood epic, you might think. But in the hands of director David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle), and with the wonderful Jennifer Lawrence in the lead, Mangano’s story is far from a conventional biopic. Packed with a star-studded ensemble cast - including Robert De Niro as Mangano’s dad, patriarch of her eccentric family, and Bradley Cooper as a thrusting TV exec - Joy charts one woman’s ingenuity, persistence and entrepreneurial flair in the face of life’s challenges, and doesn’t end with a simple rags-to-riches triumph. The result is a moving and irresistibly funny rollercoaster tale of a woman who never gives up on her dreams. Friday and Wednesday at 8.30pm, Saturday at 7.30pm, Sunday at 7.45pm, Monday at 5.45pm, Tuesday at 2pm and 7.30pm and Thursday at 6pm.