Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 8, 1994 TAG: 9401080173
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: C6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Lewis enthusiasts - and they are legion - may cavil at the liberties director/producer Richard Attenborough has taken with the details of their hero's life. In some cases they will be justified.
But in the main, "Shadowlands" is a moving portrayal of mature love between two adults, loss and the meaning of suffering. These are not, needless to say, subjects that have been handled well in recent big-budget films.
Co-starring Debra Winger, the movie is based on the true story of Lewis' late marriage to the American divorcee Joy Gresham. Two more dissimilar individuals could hardly be imagined.
In 1952 Lewis was the world-famous author of best-selling children's books like "The Chronicles of Narnia," abstruse literary criticism and Christian apologetics. He lived a regular bachelor existence with his brother Warnie at their home, the Kilns, in Oxford. "I like my life to be boring," Lewis once told a reporter for "Time" magazine.
Gresham was a Jewish convert to Christianity and a former communist with blunt manners and occasionally a foul mouth. William Nicholson's script tones down the part considerably for Debra Winger.
Lewis first married Gresham in a civil ceremony in order that she could have British citizenship to remain in England. He later came to love her, and they were eventually married by a priest of the Church of England.
By that time Gresham was suffering from the cancer that was to take her life. But thanks to a remission in her disease - granted, as Lewis believed, in response to prayer - the pair were able to enjoy a brief period of happiness.
In fact, Lewis was not quite the emotional virgin that he seems in "Shadowlands." His brother Warnie's alcoholism was worse than what we see in the film, Joy's death was more lingering and painful, and Lewis' Christianity was more overt.
But this film, beautifully photographed in Oxford by Roger Pratt, honestly earns the tears that were evident in the moviehouse at its first Roanoke showing. I would not have supposed a major film company could even come close to portraying any serious truth of C.S. Lewis' life; this film does better than any Lewis fan could have hoped.
Hopkins and Winger are memorable together in "Shadowlands." Don't miss it.
\ Shadowlands: **** A Savoy Pictures release playing at the Salem Valley 8. Rated PG for mild language.
by CNB