"Shadowlands"
                             A film review by
                           Linda Lopez McAlister
                           on "The Women's Show"
                         WMNF-FM (88.5), Tampa, FL
                              January 8, 1994

   During the holiday season I usually attend the annual meeting of the 
 American Philosophical Association.  This year two groups that meet in 
 conjunction with the APA, the Society for Women in Philosophy and the 
 Society for the Study of Women Philosophers, had a special guest: the 
 distinguished feminist historian Gerda Lerner.  Not only did she give a 
 memorable talk based on her new book The Creation of Feminist Consciousness, 
 she also very graciously spent some informal time with members of the 
 sponsoring groups.  One of the things she said that struck me particularly 
 was that she believes the differences between women and men, though very 
 largely culturally determined, will probably never be substantially changed 
 until men regulary and routinely undertake caregiving tasks the way women 
 universally do--and not just the caring for children but, in particular, 
 caring for the terminally ill.

    That idea was reverberating strongly in my mind yesterday as I was watching
 SHADOWLANDS, Richard Attenborough's magnificent new film about marriage, love,
 and death as it was experienced by the  British writer C.S. Lewis and his
 "American, Jewish, Christian, Communist, poet" wife Joy Davidman Gresham.

   In 1952 C. S. Lewis was a 54 year old Oxford don and bachelor who lived with
 his bachelor brother and whose entire world was the privileged, protected, and
 entirely masculine world of the intellect, Magdalen College and the Anglican
 church.  He was, by then, a famous writer on literature, on religion,
 and--though he didn't even know any children--of children's books.  He also 
 was a sought after speaker and we see him holding forth with his smug answer 
 to the problem of evil, that is, to the question how a good, merciful, and 
 omnipotent God could allow pain and evil to exist in the world.  He speaks 
 on these topics, however, from within a world of civility and rationality in 
 which he is always himself in control--never seriously challenged, never 
 allowing himself close emotional ties, nor personally experiencing the pain 
 or evil that he discourses on.  Yet the fact that "the magical" is a central 
 part of the books he writes for children reveals that he is capable, at some 
 level, of getting beyond the rigid rationalistic code of the masculine 
 intellectual world he inhabits, though his fellow dons regard this as a 
 mere eccentricity.

    Into this world comes Joy Gresham who had corresponded with him and comes 
 in awe to meet the great man.  In his world of polite propriety and 
 circumspection she is utterly direct, or, as he later tells her, "the truest 
 person I have even known."  He is charmed but, even as their friendship 
 grows it remains only a superficial connection for him, or so he thinks.  
 Even after they go through a civil marriage ceremony in order to allow her 
 and her son to remain permanently in England, he sees them as only 
 "technically" bound to one another and he bustles off to catch a train, 
 leaving her to "celebrate" the wedding by having a drink with his brother.  
 Finally, the frustration of loving someone who is so emotionally repressed 
 gets to her and she lashes out at him.  Her anger followed by the revalation 
 that she is suffering from advanced bone cancer and is about to die shocks 
 him into the realization that he loves her deeply.   They remarry in the 
 church that they both believe in and he devotes himself to caring for her 
 through her painful illness.  There is a brief idyllic period of temporary 
 remission of the disease but it is only a respite before she dies.

   One of the best things about this film, one of the things that makes it rise
 above a high-class soap opera, is that it does not end here.  Attenborough
 and his screenwriter William Nicholson carry on and explore Lewis's grief and
 how he deals with the palpable experience of pain and evil in his own life and
 how it changes him as a person and a teacher.  Once he has the experience the
 answers never again look so clever and pat.

    Anthony Hopkins, just coming off his great portrayal of the repressed 
 butler in "Remains of the Day" gives here an even more subtle and nuanced 
 performance. His C.S. Lewis may be "the truest [screen] person" you've ever 
 known.  Hopkins is truly an astounding actor.   And Deborah Winger's Joy 
 Gresham, complete with a dead-ringer New York accent, is every bit a match 
 for him.     

   The film is SHADOWLANDS, the title of one of C.S. Lewis's stories.
 See it.

   For the WMNF Women's Show this has been Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and
 Film.

   Copyright 1993 by Linda Lopez McAlister.  All rights reserved.  Please do 
not reprint this review without the permission of the author.