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Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins sublime in the moving Shadowlands |
Director: Richard Attenborough
Cast: Anthony Hopkins (CS “Jack” Lewis), Debra Winger (Joy
Davidman), Edward Hardwicke (Warnie Lewis), Joseph Mazzello (Douglas Gresham),
John Woods (Dr Christopher Riley), Michael Denison (Harry Harrington), James
Frain (Peter Whistler), Julian Fellowes (Desmond Arding), Peter Firth (Dr
Craig), Roger Ashton-Griffiths (Dr Eddie Monk)
“We can’t have the happiness of yesterday without the pain
of today. That’s the deal”. It’s a sentiment that runs through Shadowlands, a beautifully made, deeply
heartfelt, incredibly moving tear-jerker based on the (largely) true story of
how the man who invented Narnia, CS Lewis (Anthony Hopkins), fell in love very
late in life with an American poet Joy Davidman (Debra Winger) only for her to
succumb to cancer early in their marriage.
The story had a been a life-long investment from William
Nicholson, who had developed the story first into a radio play, a TV drama
(with Joss Ackland and a BAFTA winning Claire Bloom) and then a stage play
(which won Nigel Hawthorne several awards in the lead role, including a Tony
Award) and finally into this film. A wonderfully tender, profound and genuine
exploration of the not only grief but the joy and delight that opening yourself
up to love can bring you, Nicholson’s Oscar nominated script was brought to the
screen by Richard Attenborough.
Looking back over Attenborough’s CV you immediately notice
the vast majority of films he directed were massive, all-star, huge scope epics
– A Bridge Too Far, Gandhi – which were as much triumphs of
logistics and studio managements as they were displays of directing. Shadowlands is one of the smallest
scale, most personal films he ever made – and it’s enough to make you wish that
Attenborough had allowed himself to make more intimate chamber pieces like
this. It’s a wonderful reminder, not only of how skilled he is at pacing and
story-telling, but also what a sublime actor’s director he is. Dealing with
material that in lesser hands could have become sentimental, Attenborough turns
out a film that is realistic, tender, sad but also laced throughout with a
warmth and (figurative and literal) Joy.
And of course the involvement of Attenborough also meant the
involvement of his regular collaborator Anthony Hopkins. At the start of the
90s Hopkins was in such a run of form he could plausibly claim to be the best
actor in the world. In all of this though, Shadowlands
might be one of his finest accomplishments. Superbly detailed, perfectly
restrained, gentle, tender, hugely vulnerable and intensily scared (under it
all) of connecting with the wider world or allowing himself to feel genuine
emotions, Hopkins’ CS Lewis is simply exceptional. With all the discipline of a
great actor he never once goes for the easy option, but gently allows emotions
to play behind his eyes (the eyes by the way that he can hardly bring himself
to settle on other people until half way through the film). And those moments
where he weeps – three times in the film, and each increasingly more emotional
– are simply beautiful in every way from acting to filming.
Lewis is bashful and repressed, so it’s all the moving to
see his face start to relax into excitement and joy when he spots Joy in the
audience at a lecture he is giving, or him simply enjoying the intelligence and
challenge that she brings to her conversation with him. Debra Winger as Joy
Davidman matches Hopkins step-for-step, in a sublime performance of prickily
New York attitudes at first out of touch in Oxford, but whose humanity shines
through. It takes her time perhaps to feel the love Lewis does (but can’t admit
too), but when she does start to feel more for Lewis, she has no patience for
his repressed unwillingness to acknowledge them. On top of which, Winger is
very funny in the role – she has little truck with the sheltered, clubbish
snobbiness of some of Lewis’ friends and takes a wicked delight in shocking the
stuffy, unchallenged intellectuals.
The chemistry between these two actors is sublime, and the
slightly autumnal relationship between the two of them that builds feels
wonderfully genuine. Nicholson’s script makes an astute examination of Lewis’
personality and Christianity. Throughout the film, we are brought back again
and again to a lecture Lewis gives – with increasingly less and less
disconnection – on why God allows suffering and pain in the world. Pleasingly
Lewis’ faith in the film isn’t challenged – only his rather pleased-with-itself
lack of doubt and his complacent lack of experience. Experiencing love and loss
himself, makes him question the views he has held – and leads him to develop a
richer, more genuine understanding of the world.
Which all makes the film sound very heavy, and it’s not.
It’s a delightfully light done story that never once leans too hard on the
tragedy. Instead it punctures several moments with touches of humour (much of
it from Joy’s American clashes with high-table Britishness) and moments of
sweet affection. The film gains a lot of balance from Edward Hardwicke’s
delightful performance as Lewis’ Dr Watson-ish brother Warnie, a bluff ex-army officer
turned academic who reveals himself over the course of a film to have a great
deal of hidden love, affection and empathy. It also has a delightful
performance from Joseph Mazzello as Douglas Gresham, a child performance that
brilliantly avoids all cloying sweetness and feels very real as a shy, nervous
boy dealing with his mother dying.
But then, Lewis is also a shy nervous boy (both he and
Warnie never really got over the death of their mother as boys – a moment that
both wordlessly acknowledge while observing Joy with her son at the hospital),
and the film follows him becoming something more than that, a man wh has loved
and lost and can deal with it. A neat subplot around James Frain’s difficult
working-class student demonstrates his growing ability to relate and empathise
with others. A large chunk of the film builds towards Lewis’ tearful outpouring
of grief (a scene impossible to watch dry eyed), a reaction that seemed
impossible in the opening moments.
But then that’s what the film is saying: We have to accept
that the joy of loving people, the wonder and warmth that they bring to our
life, will inevitably one day lead to us losing them. Allowing us to experience
love and joy is counter balanced by the pain we will feel when they go. It’s a
deal – and if it is a deal, it’s the price we pay for having our life enriched.
Attenborough’s simply beautiful, romantic film covers all this gently and brilliantly:
it’s a film to treasure and hold tight.
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