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Editorial Reviews
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Deservedly hailed as one of the best films of 2001, Wit makes it clear why top-ranking talents seek refuge in the quality programming of HBO. Unhindered by box-office pressures, director Mike Nichols and Emma Thompson turn the most unglamorous topic--the physical and psychological ravages of cancer--into an exquisite contemplation of life, learning, and tenacious, richly expressed humanity. In adapting Margaret Edson's compassionate, Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Nichols and Thompson open up the one-room setting with a superb supporting cast. But their focus remains on the hospital experience of Vivian (Thompson), a fiercely demanding professor of English literature whose academic specialty--the metaphysical poetry of John Donne--is the armor she wears against the cruel indignities of her cancer treatment. While losing all that she held dear, she reassesses her life as an aloof intellectual, and Wit illuminates her bracingly eloquent and deeply moving struggle for dignity, meaning, and peace at life's ultimate crossroads. --Jeff Shannon
Product Description
WIT - DVD Movie
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
139 of 145 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH...,
By Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (COMMUNITY FORUM 04) (TOP 50 REVIEWER)
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This review is from: Wit (DVD)
This brilliant adaptation of Margaret Edison's Pulitzer Prize winning play is simply superb. Beautifully directed by Mike Nichols, it is peppered with superlative performances by its cast. It is almost hard to believe that this profoundly moving and poignant film was released for HBO, rather than as a major box office, big screen release.
Tautly written, this remarkable film focuses on an intense and brilliant professor of English, forty-eight year old Vivian Bearing (Emma Thompson), whose academic focus has been metaphysical poetry. She has just been diagnosed by a noted oncologist, Dr. Kelikian (Christopher Lloyd), as having stage four ovarian cancer. She agrees to undergo an eight month long clinical trial to fight this illness, which at the juncture of its discovery is, invariably, terminal. This course of experimental treatment is Professor Bearing's only hope, as she realizes that there is no stage five. As she undergoes agonizing medical procedures which, it is hoped, may save her life, Professor Bearing muses on a number of life issues in the form of droll monologues. It is these reflections on her life and her illness that drive home to the viewer her humanity, as she struggles to reconcile the abstract with reality. An aloof, spare woman, with a penchant for being a demanding and exacting teacher, Professor Bearing is now trying to hang on to her humanity and dignity, as she is reduced to being a mere lump of flesh. Made to suffer the indignities imposed by an experimental medical treatment that is brutally aggressive and by the ravages of an illness that is relentless, Professor Bearing keeps a stiff upper lip throughout, never letting down her guard, until the end draws near. During her medical odyssey, she is buoyed by the ministrations of her compassionate, primary care nurse, Susie (Audra McDonald), who seems to be the only member of the medical staff interested in her as a person, rather than as just another cog in the world of medical research. Susie is a perfect foil to the ambitious medical treatment fostered by a callow, though brilliant, young doctor, Jason Posner (Jonathan M. Woodward). The most singular scene in this film, however, occurs near its end. It is the scene in which Professor Bearing's mentor, Professor E.M. Ashford (Eileen Atkins), visits her one time protege at the hospital. Heartrending, poignant, and infinitely beautiful, it is a scene so richly drawn that it that will haunt the viewer long after the film is over. Ms. Thompson gives a consummate, beautifully nuanced performance, as does Eileen Atkins. Audra McDonald gives a tender performance, and Christopher Lloyd and Jonathan M. Woodward are, likewise, excellent in their respective roles. Harold Pinter does a wonderful, though brief, turn as Professor Bearing's father. All in all, this is a deftly directed, outstanding film with award caliber performances by the entire cast. Bravo!
67 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Undying Dignity.,
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This review is from: Wit [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I just tried to write a review of this just re-watched film, from the Pulitzer Prize winning play, and I got all tangled up. So, I'm not going to go into "the story." Just watch this brilliant, moving film about the regimented, respected but feared English professor, whose world is taken from her, when she is diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Narrated throughout by her character, the brilliant Emma Thompson takes us through her progressive deterioration and loss of control amidst the sometimes indifference of the medical profession. Audra McDonald is wonderful also as the nurse, Susie, who, though a total professional, is not only the voice of compassion, but the keeper of Thompsons "Professor Barrie's" dignity, when she can no longer defend it for herself. She is a perfect contrast to the often all to real portrayal of the fresh-faced new doctor, played by Jonathan Woodward, who effectively conveys the preoccupation with stats, data, etc...in his eagerness to "analyze", forgetting there's a human being in that bed to which the stat chart is attached. The scene near the end, where Thompson/Barrie is visited by her grand-motherly former professor, who proceeds to cradle her in her hospital bed and tenderly read a childrens story to her, and bids her good bye, is one of the most moving scenes I've ever experienced. It is not an easy film to watch. Having just lost my life-long friend, who died at 47, in hospice, it was especially poignant. But, if you watch one film, watch "Wit." It is beyond being labeled as mere entertainment, and, though the subject matter is in itself depressing, the film is not. It is one of those increasingly very, very rare films that will greatly move you. And, though you pretty much know from the first words spoken in the film where it is headed, it is ultimatley life affirming, and very touching in its conveyance of the dignity of the human spirit. Easily one of the most intelligent, moving, beautiful movies I've ever seen. Watch it.
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Coming to grips with paradoxes,
By
This review is from: Wit (DVD)
**SPOILER ALERT ** -- I touch on the ending of this movie in my review.
Two wonderful works are highlighted in "Wit" -- one of John Donne's Holy Sonnets ("Death be not proud") and "The Runaway Bunny" by Margaret Wise Brown. "Wit"'s author, Margaret Edson, pulls these two seemingly distant texts into her script and uses them in the most amazing (witty?) way. Donne's metaphysical sonnets are notoriously difficult and are often approached as beautifully wrought puzzles -- puzzles that are so intellectually daunting the emotion that underlies them is sometimes missed. "The Runaway Bunny," on the other hand, is probably seen by many readers as a very simple tale full of feeling but not particularly challenging. Yet Edson shows us how deep and multilayered a children's tale can be while also demonstrating the basic human feeling underneath the most cerebral of poems. The simple becomes complex; the complex, simple. We get the most out of literature when we approach it with our full humanity engaged, ignoring neither our thoughts nor our feelings. "Wit" tells us that we get the most out of life when we approach it in the same way. Emma Thompson's cancer-stricken English professor, Vivian Bearing, ultimately triumphs over death by surrendering to it -- and it is this Donne-ish paradox that "Wit" illustrates so well. In the end, "Wit" wisely questions the notions 1) that intellect and emotion are two separate faculties and 2) that simplicity and complexity are necessarily opposites. (One hallmark of Donne's "wit" -- a term Donne's contemporaries would've understood as creative invention -- was its examination of semantic antonyms.) "Wit" also reminds us that the infinite can be both large and small. John Donne knew this stuff, and apparently so did Margaret Wise Brown. And, luckily for us, so does "Wit"'s author, Margaret Edson. By the way, if you've never read the above-mentioned Donne poem, here it is: Holy Sonnet ("Death be not proud") by John Donne Death be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe, / For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, / Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee; / From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, / Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, / And soonest our best men with thee doe goe, / Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie. / Thou'art slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, / And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, / And poppie,' or charmes can make us sleepe as well, / And better then they stroake; why swell'st thou then? / One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, / And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
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