User reviews

This film is Richard Attenborough's best directed film. Unlike Gandhi, it had no ambitions of being a grand scale historical epic. It actually played to Attenborough's strengths as a director, which are story and character development. Of course some fantastic performances from some great actors helped him out immensely. Debra Winger was nominated for an Oscar, and she was great, but we already saw her play the same disease in Terms of Endearment. Anthony Hopkins should have received an Oscar nomination for his incredible multi-layered turn as C. S. Lewis. His lifelong bachelor that falls in love and then questions his own theological beliefs when he grieves is the polar opposite of his most famous role, Hannibal Lechter, and yet he is just as convincing. With Hopkins in the lead, and Attenborough's attention to detail, this movie is one of the most overlooked films on every top 100 list, or in the case of this site, top 250 list. If you like movies that have stories, characters, and atmosphere, this is for you. 8 of 10.

Shadowlands started out as a 1986 BBC television film. Actor Joss Ackland regarded playing CS Lewis as one of his favourite roles.

William Nicholson later adapted his own screenplay for a movie version directed by Richard Attenborough. This was a small chamber piece for a director better known for epics with a cast of thousands.

For Anthony Hopkins it was another opportunity to show he can do subtle and nuance after winning an Oscar for The Silence of the Lambs.

Inspired by the true story of dusty dry Oxford academic CS Lewis. Who fell in love with divorced American poet Joy Gresham in 1950s Britain.

It is a story of how a middle aged man, known for his children books. Turned friendship into a marriage of convenience (in order for Joy to remain in Britain.) To romance by which time she is dying of cancer.

Just as Hopkins did in 84 Charing Cross Road. It is a portrait of a hemmed in repressed grey 1950s Britain. In this case the upper echelons of academia which seemed to have been consisted of single old men.

The acting is top notch. The direction is retrained. It's a bit of a tearjerker.

I probably watch this film every two years, yet like fine wine, it grows even better after time. This picture is a beautiful, thought provoking, and highly effective meditation on how love, death, god, joy, and pain all coexist in the strange universe that is life. With subject matter as complex as this, the viewer can see where one could easily become lost in C.S. Lewis's story, but "Shadowlands" never falters. The film remains quiet, simple, and highly effective through Attenborough's understated direction, and its cast's uniformly excellent performances.

However, what sits at the very core of "Shadowlands" beauty is its ultimate truth. There are moments in this film so full of genuine, unflynching emotion that its power practically hits the audience member in the gut. Yes, the film's magnificently depicted scenes of death and grieving never fail to jerk tears from my eyes, but Lewis's closing lines regarding the choices he made as a boy and a man make me sob.

"Shadowlands" is undoubtedly representative of filmaking at its very best. I recommend this film without reservation to anyone!

A few years ago, I had the pleasure to correspond with Douglas Gresham. (FYI, Douglas is Joy's son -- thus C.S. Lewis step-son -- played by Joseph Mazzello in this film.) I had recently seen Shadowlands, and so I asked Douglas how "true to life" the picture was. He told me that some details (dates, places) had been changed slightly for obvious dramatic/story-telling reasons, but that the "spirit" and "feeling" of all the emotions portrayed in the movie were perfectly accurate. That's exactly what it all felt like, he said.

I own the movie (and the soundtrack), and have seen it a dozen times... and I still get teary-eyed at the scene where Douglas and Jack cry in each other's arms... this movie rates a perfect 10 from me; I can't find any fault with it at all.

Shadowlands

DIRECTION 48% Sweet and natural looking period drama.

ACTING 86% You can't go wrong with Hopkins and the other supports don't distract from this man.

EDITING/SPECIAL EFFECTS 15% Not needed here that much.

PLOT 87% A true story about C. S. Lewis.

STRONG WORDS AND VIOLENCE ETC N/A.

MUSIC 92% Classical variations to bring the BIG church traditional music to life and glorious wonder.

SOUND 10% Natural sounds for natural people.

HOOKABILITY 79% Love the music, love the start!

LASTABILITY 85% If you don't already know the story you will want to see the end.

OVERALL 82% Good adaptation of a true story, not disappointing but could have been better if more of his personal christian experiences were related to the viewer.

C. S. Lewis is making a bit of a comeback with the "Chronicles Of Narnia" movie of late, but here's a film portrait of him made in 1993 starring the great British actor Anthony Hopkins.

To Christians, Lewis has always been a familiar name: one of the greatest and most well-known Christian apologists theologians ("Merre Christianity," "The Screwtape Letters,"etc.) and fiction (the Narnia series) writers of all time. But this film - no surprise - doesn't really deal with that: it's mainly a love story, the love he had toward his American wife, played by Debra Winger.

Being a Brit, the film takes place in England and features some wonderful landscapes of that great country. Hopkins exudes warmth in the role of Lewis and Winger is okay, New York City accent and all, as the American. I would have chosen someone else for the role, but Winger gets by.

Not to be forgotten is the fine job Edward Hardwicke did as "Warnie," Lewis' brother. Joseph Mazzello, one of the top child actors of the early '90s, is the Lewis' young boy. When father and son cry together at the end, it is one of the most touching scenes I've ever viewed on film.

It's a touching story, period, and if it doesn't get your eyes moistened at least once, check your pulse. The dialog in here is excellent, too. I particularly enjoyed the by-play of dry wit between the professors and Winger's various comments to her husband.

Nice films like this are unusual and should be treasured, as Lewis and his works are by so many people, Christian or non-Christian.

Romanticized true account of British writer C. S. Lewis and his timid, awkward friendship and eventual marriage to American poet Joy Gresham, a feisty divorcée with a young son. After a flat, numbing first-half, "Shadowlands" gets a bit pacier, becoming a moving (if rather saintly) look at old-fashioned feelings and true love. Anthony Hopkins, playing Lewis, doesn't seem quite into this role (his performance consists mainly of faraway glances and noble little smiles), but Debra Winger as Gresham comes through with a strong characterization. "Shadowlands" is beautifully filmed and obviously made with great care, but it's missing that hearty ingredient which might have made it a romantic classic. Factual story was first produced for British television in 1985 and starred Joss Ackland and Claire Bloom; writer William Nicholson penned both versions, as well as a play under the same title. **1/2 from ****

I will say that when I saw the rating of 7.4, someone will say that is a fairly decent rating. I personally think for this masterpiece, the rating should be higher, honestly the quality of the acting and cinematography makes it worthy to be in the top 250. I honestly did think that this film is just extraordinary, beautifully shot with wonderful locations, and matched perfectly by one of the most gorgeous music scores I have ever heard in my life, composed by George Fenton that never interfered with the calmness of the film. Richard Attenborough has directed many ambitious but beautifully made films like Oh!What a Lovely War, Cry Freedom and Chaplin, and I will say that Shadowlands deserves to be up there with his best, it is a heart-rending film of true love and the consequences that left me speechless(I am 17), that I don't think has had enough praise. The performances were just outstanding. Anthony Hopkins was phenomenal as CS Lewis, and I am glad he got some awards for his performance, honestly it was that good. Debra Winger is just perfection as Joy Gresham, a victim of the devastating illness bone cancer. The two leads' chemistry is the main reason why I love this movie, I confess I cried when Lewis held the dying Joy in his arms, the reason being it reminded me of Mimi's Death Scene in La Boheme. The child star, Joseph Mazello was a huge surprise as Douglas, a boy of wide imagination and deep feeling. The scene where he and Lewis are crying in each other's arms made my eyes well up with emotion, never until yesterday did I see Hopkins look so tender with anybody on screen, not even in The Elephant Man. As Warnie, Edward Hardwicke best known for his appearances as Dr Watson in the 80s-90s Sherlock Holmes series was remarkable, a minor character but one with feeling and understanding. The actors are helped by a poignant and well-written script, that at times does give clever nods to Lewis's literary genius. It is no wonder that Shadowlands got an award for best British film of the year, it is just beautiful. It is more steady paced than the Elephant Man, another film I am really fond of,and less involving in terms of action, but neither of these things are disadvantages, because i cannot deny what joy I felt watching this film. 10/10 Bethany Cox.

"Shadowlands" had already been effectively done once before as a British TV-movie with Joss Ackland and Claire Bloom. It's poignance lay in it's ability to movingly tell the story of C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham *without* tampering with the facts. And in particular, the importance of Christianity in the lives of both Lewis and Joy was not watered down one iota. When Lewis goes through his crisis after her death, we hear quotations from his moving "A Grief Observed" that helped him regain focus on his faith, and the film ended with a powerful image of Lewis planning to tell his stepson Douglas about the meaning of faith.

Alas, this important element is completely missing from this ultimately pointless theatrical version of the story. To be sure there are fine performances by Hopkins and Winger, but in addition to the altered factual details (unlike the original telefilm, Joy's elder son David Gresham is zapped from existence this time out), this movie in typical arrogant Hollywood style decides to remove the importance of Christianity from both the lives of C.S. Lewis and Joy. The end result is something that is blatantly dishonest in the worst form, and one can only note that if Lewis and Joy were practitioners of any faith other than traditional orthodox Christianity, we would no doubt have not seen Hollywood (which will always have nothing but contempt for those of traditional faith) try to downplay this into meaninglessness.

Leave it to Hollywood to find a way of turning a story about the 20th century's greatest apologist for traditional Christianity into what is ultimately another of their typical backhanded anti-Christian swipes.

UPDATE: Four years later, I am amused to see the reasons for my negative view validated in so many of the positive reviews of this film, which again operate from the conceit that the importance of Christian faith in the lives of both C.S. Lewis and Joy is something that can be easily ignored. That is the ultimate testament to the historical dishonesty behind this movie because without the mutual element of faith, there is no story of these two. This was the point that the original BBC telemovie did NOT forget, and it accomplished it without giving us a non-stop sermon (which is what the apologists for this movie seem to think a critic like me would have wanted to see) but by judiciously inserting the moments of Lewis and Joy talking about faith, and giving us that poignant ending that lets us know that Lewis is serious about teaching Douglas the meaning of how to find the true faith in God that he has now recovered in the wake of Joy's death. That is the definitive telling of the story in a way that this one could only hope to be.

Many people seeing this film who are familiar with CS Lewis' writings will be tempted to be disappointed.

They should not be. In defense of this film and the method used to get the results, I have two things to say.

The first, and by far the most important, is that spiritual films are very difficult to make -- especially if one is speaking about something above one's head. That's why the life of Jesus is such a difficult subject and has met with so little success, at least from an artistic point of view.

Even Mel Gibson's Passion suffers from this to some extent. I would say his representation of the Passion reflect more of our times and what we consider to be important than on the ministry of Jesus. I may be wrong; I am not a believer so my opinion may not matter. But what is true is that no matter what your belief, spiritual man (Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and others) are very hard to make biographies of. In my opinion what they represented survived not because we have understanding, but because our instincts tell us they are what we should be. It is not a mind thing at all. AND FILMS REQUIRE OUR MINDS, at least to make them. It would take a soul equal to that of Christ to make a film about Christ.

To a far lesser extent, that is true of CS Lewis. His was a very complex theology dressed in wonderful parables. He had a great understanding of the parables and used the same technique. It does little good to discuss his theology in a film that is about 2 hours long. In fact, the viewer is sort of expected to know something about his writings and theology.

Which brings me to my second point. Perhaps it is because I am over 60 and not been brought up on Romances that I find this one so appealing. Here was a man that had lived his entire life one way, mostly in his mind, when he was confronted with feelings that demanded he reinterpret everything he believed. How many of us at his age could do what CS Lewis did?

Here was a man that thought one way and was forced to live another. What the mind is a very poor substitute for what our emotions understand. CS Lewis was very quick, I think, to recognize this and embraced it completely once he found it out.

Douglas Davidman Gresham (Joy Gresham's son), has said that the film is perhaps not completely factually correct, but the emotion representation is "spot on".

For me, no truer words could be spoken. What does it matter what details are missing, or changed because we have only 2 hours to tell a story? What matters is that we see the humanity of the man and his wonderful ability to embrace openly his new found emotions are what matters. And to put this into his spiritual structure was even more remarkable.

It's a good film. Enjoy it and pay attention. It requires an open heart and an open mind. Give it both.

The true story of British writer C. S. Lewis who, despite his comfortable bachelor life, falls in love with a lively, spirited American poet played extremely well by Debra Winger. Excellent script, and direction along with outstanding performances by the supporting cast.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

This film is utterly perfect.

A film about love, faith & loss.

Top notch acting from all the truly wonderful cast

Attenborough has directed several great films but this one is an exquisite jewel of a film.

This is obviously a well-directed and well-acted film that loses much by its lack of a good score to hold everything together and "spot" changes in mood.

The one composer that came to mind that would have been perfect for this type of film was the French composer Georges Delerue. He could have lifted this film into the stratosphere of emotions.

Unfortunately he died the year before this film was released. George Fenton's score was one of the most anemic I've ever heard and it does nothing to carry the film.

But there are other issues here too. For a film like this, theological debates should have balanced the more domestic/sentimental scenes. There should have been debates throughout (on pain, on the existence of God, on theodicy, on the value of human suffering, etc.) I don't mean "intellectual" debates, but the kind of conversations that must have been routine among Lewis and his colleagues at the university, more like bull sessions.

Instead the film meanders along, often without focus, and valuable film time is wasted on showing the little boy mesmerized by an attic, and similar scenes that seem pointless.

Despite her Oscar nom and reviews that praised her performance, Debra Winger's performance seemed perfunctory, but blame must also go the screenwriter for not giving her part more substance.

One can't praise a film simply for its good intentions and risk-taking in an age when people fire guns in a movie 5 minutes after the movie begins. The movie needed some "muscle."

A powerful score could have provided it, but also a screenplay that balanced the romance with serious theological debates over pints of beer.

After being very impressed with Remains Of The Day I was more than keen to watch this, after hearing a lot of good things about it. After a good start I lost interest about forty five minutes in and upon reflection, felt that the film needed a little bit more character development before plunging into the start of a relationship between writer CS Lewis and a married American woman. I don't know why this didn't grab me because it started well and had a good feel about it, but I think that for me there was too big a leap taken between a cursory relationship to one of great love. I couldn't get into the feelings being presented on screen in the end.

I have watched this movie many times and it always moves me beyond my plebeian existence into another place I inhabit only occasionally the film that moves me. Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins are simply perfect together as Joy Gresham and Jack (C S) Lewis.

Shadowlands is, more often than not, described as a love story, and, sure enough, it is. But it is also a story about a famous writer and respected scholar, an Englishman of advancing years, who has repressed any and all feelings ever since he lost his mother as a young child.

Socializing mainly with his colleagues, and living with his brother, the protagonist has built an intimidating castle, surrounded by fortified walls and a deep and wide moat, in order to protect himself. Not against any threats from the outside world, but from reality and, most of all, from his inner self.

Now, what would happen if someone approached the outer gates of his castle? What would happen if someone knocked on his door?

Anthony Hopkins is brilliantly cast as the emotionally handicapped author C. S. Lewis, and he does a really good job of portraying him. Debra Winger performs well in her role as the author's American fan, but this is clearly Anthony Hopkins' show.

I recommend that you watch Shadowlands, but don't do it on a night when you're tired. This is a toned-down and fairly slow film, and to enjoy it thoroughly, you need to be focused.

This film would not normally be the kind I would choose to see. However, it is the only movie to make me cry as an adult. This is despite the fact that the subject matter seems far less important than, say, "Schindler's List". Perhaps though it is as important because it operates at a human level that is easier for most of us to relate to. Although I was familiar with C. S. Lewis, I had not previously known enough about him to be aware of his love for Joy Gresham and the outcome of their relationship. That perhaps made it all the more powerful. Perfect acting and a story that is simple, yet so moving. Less is most certainly more.

Debra Winger is such a good actress. She brings vitality and edginess to her characters. So it was surprising to see her attempt to rein it in here for the sake of this plodding, stiff-upper-lip tale of love gained and lost. The film moves at a snail's pace with no inventive directorial flourishes to make it interesting, relying instead on sanctimonious dialogue and somber performances. It gets old long before the aching two-and-a-half hours have passed. Though Anthony Hopkins gives it his usual earnest effort, the whole thing fails to ring true, particularly in wasted scenes like his feeble call for room service. Not especially entertaining or enlightening.