Review of Shadowlands (1993) by Scott M — 16 Jun 2008

Shadowlands.

Directed by Richard Attenborough.

Written by William Nicholson.

Based on the play by William Nicholson.

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Debra Winger, Joseph Mazzello, Edward Hardwicke, James Frain.

This story offers insight into the brief love affair between C.S. ?Jack? Lewis (Hopkins) and Helen Joy Gresham (Winger) that ended with her death in 1961.

Jack is racing toward old age, entrenched in his ways and not much interested in change of any sort. However, when one of his pen pals from America announces she?s coming to England to holiday, his snug little world is trampled and he?s left with a new order to contend with. Joy Gresham, a poet from New York, meets him for tea at a hotel near Oxford where the old scholar lives and works. The film explores their relationship as it switches over time from friendship to platonic love to romantic love. At first there is respectful distance between the two but slowly this begins to dissolve and their bond becomes faster.

In this version (the first one was a BBC production released in 1985) Jack has a bit more spry in his step. He acts younger and has a bit of an easier time getting from point A to point B. Hopkins plays Jack as an elegant, retiring bachelor as the film opens. He?s perfectly resigned to finishing his days without bothering to dip into the blemished waters of eternal love. He?s fragile but all this is laid to waste as soon as he enters the classroom. In this version Jack gives lectures as opposed to the other one where he recorded them to be broadcast later.

Joy Gresham is here rather spunky and brash. She?s more New York than in the other one and more apt to say things that pop into her head without mulling them over. An associate of Jack makes a comment contrary to the legitimacy of the soul where he says that men have intellect and women only have a soul. To this Joy replies, ?Are you trying to be offensive or are you just stupid.? The comment shuts the man up immediately and Joy goes about the rest of her day unaffected. Joy proves to be just the burst of fresh air that Jack has needed for years. Firstly, she introduces a femininity that Jack has all but forgotten about. Her intellect and her purpose influence him greatly as she slowly begins to crumble inside. The cancer proves to be quite a shock and it?s lovely how it is presented in this film. She falls down with Jack on the phone and smashes up her fibula. She is found to have terminal cancer at this point and the moment Jack is informed is fraught with a terrible tension.

Anthony Hopkins does a grand job in searching for the right method to convey Jack?s approach to both his work and his love. He embodies the scholar devoted to words and ideas with a passion rarely expressed by any person at any time. It?s clearly written on Hopkins?s face as he reads to his students or lectures to a hall of onlookers. This Jack is a man who knows his place and has reached a certain level of calm that he allows openly to be shattered by the emergence of another being to walk with, to share intimate secrets, to praise and cherish. Yet, it isn?t until Joy is in the hospital that Jack realizes he loves her. He sits in a chair trying to figure out the best way to keep her and he realizes that he does indeed love her and the only proper course is to marry her before god. This is indeed what happens and without warning Joy?s cancer goes into remission and she spends a few good years with Jack just as any other loving couple might do. They are decidedly unaware of the ticking clock that pays no mind to desires or intentions.

Debra Winger portrays Joy as a whirlwind of legitimate emotion. Joy is fierce in her own way, solid and natural in her movements. Winger provides Joy with a spirit of great warmth and depth. Joy is a perfect match for Jack because she isn?t afraid to challenge him to a fight. In this interpretation of the story, the two sons of Joy are condensed into one child, Douglas (Mazzello). Mazzello plays his character with an emotional honesty that he carries straight through to the end. Douglas is transformed from a carefree boy into a sad and withdrawn child who is frightfully worried about the health of his mother. In one of those cruel echoes of history, Jack is forced to watch Douglas suffer through at the precise same age the torment and hurt that plagued him after his own mother died. Some of the most poignant moments of this film are between Jack and Douglas as neither one is fully capable of expressing the totality of their grief. As Warnie, Jack?s older brother, Edward Hardwicke presents a solid weight of grave authority. Warnie is even more set in his ways than Jack but quickly warms up to the idea of having a woman around to cut in to the time he spends with his brother in study or doing not much of anything at all.

Overall, this film captures the essence of true and lasting love through the hearts and eyes of a famous author and a less famous but notable poet. Joy brought her namesake into the life of an old man who desperately needed to experience one life passion before his eventual death. In a sense, all his life?s work seemed to be waiting for validation in the arms of someone with whom he was able to give everything of himself to. But, by risking it all on love, Jack once again experienced the bitter hell of losing the very person he could least afford to lose. He lectures in the film about suffering and whether or not god intends us to suffer. He sides with the idea that suffering is a necessary component of life and that there is no escaping its grasp, no matter how we try to hide from it.