Review of Wit

A female professor--wry, canny, tough, fragile--goes through a wrenching medical experience fighting ovarian cancer. Made-for-cable movie looks great on TV, but would it also play successfully on the big screen? In this case, yes, but television--being a far more intimate medium--certainly allows the viewer a bird's-eye glimpse into this story about sickness. Just because "Wit" isn't on the movie screen doesn't mean it's not an all-encompassing, breathtaking drama. Director Mike Nichols hasn't been this focused in a long time (he flashes around in this woman's life with uncanny accuracy, and always returns to the present at just the right moment). The pacing of the movie is gentle but not doddering; this isn't a melodrama about pity, nor is it a medical expose or a squeamish thing with lots of needles. It is a quietly absorbing, exceptionally well-rounded chapter of a woman's life, and that woman--Emma Thompson, doing precise and brilliant work--is an embraceable subject. We let her into our hearts, making the finale that much more emotional.