Wit

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Actor(s):

Emma Thompson, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Atkins, Audra McDonald, Jonathan M. Woodward

Director(s):

Mike Nichols

Label: Hbo Home Video
Publisher(s):

Hbo Home Video

Studio: Hbo Home Video
Manufacturer: Hbo Home Video
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
MPN: HBOD91781D
Format(s): Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
List Price: $9.98
Our Price: $5.99
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Vivian bearing is a disciplined english professor who finds her rational approach to live overturned when she is diagnosed with cancer. No longer a teacher but a subject for others to study vivian is about to discover a fine line between life and death that can only be walked with wit. Studio: Hbo Home Video Release Date: 06/01/2004 Starring: Emma Thompson Christopher Lloyd Run time: 99 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Mike Nichols

Amazon.com

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

Customer Reviews

Gut wrenching

This movie was gut wrenching. As a nurse it opened my eyes to how a patient perceives us. I had some of my nursing students watch it. Yes I made them cry, but it helped them grow.

too passionless and didactic

The most moving scene for me is close to the end when the extraordinary actress (Eileen Atkins?) reads a children's book, THE RUNAWAY BUNNY, to the dying Dr. Vivian Bearing. But much as I love the poetry of John Donne (and I do), I found the endless quoting of his work all through the movie to be passionless, intrusive, and didactic. Too many points were too self-consciously made, although the routine inhumanity of hospitals was very well evoked and many of the minor actors were terrific. Particularly impressive (along with Eileen Atkins) was the doctor in the opening scene who gives the stiffly academic Dr. Bearing the bad news. This actor was Christopher Lloyd, I think. A cameo appearance was also made by the late Harold Pinter, who was just fine in the role. An actress with the luminosity of Liv Ullman would have been amazing as Dr. Bearing, and so,in fact, would Eileen Atkins at a younger age, but Emma Thompson (to me, at least, and at least in this movie) gives a shallow one-note performance. Her body language is excellent (getting on and off stretchers, throwing up) but the more emotional aspects of her performance are memorable above all for their lack of spiritual intensity.

Elisabeth Harvor

Powerful, Brilliant, Heartfelt

There are so many fine reviews here that another detailed commentary isn't needed. The film inspired some wonderful comments. I just want to add my five star vote.

The idea is brilliant, the script, written by Thompson and Mike Nichols is brilliant, the acting and directing are all brilliant.

I can't imagine another actress doing what Thompson does here!! The supporting cast is excellent. Eileen Atkins, as Thompson's teacher, will bring tears to the hardest heart in what has to be one of the most moving scenes in all of film-dom. I wished the movie had ended there, but it didn't and we had to see the final installment of the dehumanizing treatment by the clueless hospital staff. Unfortunately this is a reality in our world. Hopefully movies like this may make their way into medical training to help things along.

This isn't a movie for the faint hearted or for those who want mindless diversion. But if you do choose to see it, you might be a better person.

Worth watching

This movie is a requirement for one of my nursing classes. Although, it is exaggerated (for effect), the desensitization displayed by the medical employees makes the movie relevant for those of us in healthcare.

The theme is somewhat overstated and dramatized, not much subtly to the movie, still I enjoyed the movie. Certainly preferred it over other classroom assignments.

Wit by Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson portrayed the challenges of getting treated for Cancer in a very thought provoking manner in Wit. I believe all medical students need to view this film. As someone who has completed Chemotherapy and radiation, it was satisfying to hear the inner conversation as the character journeyed through the treatment and life.

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