Wonderfully offbeat film!

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

I'm impressed with the volume of favorable reviews of this film. If you've gone this far, there's no reason at all for me to rehash the plot, the marvelous acting, or the directorial skills displayed here. If I may add something new to the reviews, I would like to say that it's a sad world where Anthony Hopkins is much more known for his portrayal of Hannibal Lechter in The Silence Of The Lambs franchise. I despised those movies, not because I don't like horrific flicks. Check out my other reviews if you think I'm a sob sister who just can't take it. But this is not a review of those films, so I'll proceed...What makes this film rise to greatness is it's portrayal of a man who thinks he has life, the universe, and everything, all wrapped up in a tidy intellectual package, and then finds himself doing and feeling things which force him to completely reevaluate the foundations of his life and faith. I can't help but think that there are many Christians who considered the subject of C. S. Lewis to be safe ground to venture through. Those who only know him through his Narnia stories, and the approval given for those films by their clergy, must have been quite surprised to find the man willing to break immigration laws to wed a somewhat bohemian woman for reasons of citizenship. I hope that those who first recoil at the truth of his life, grow as Lewis did as he faced the contradictions to his smug, self satisfied, view of himself and his faith. If you're a macho man who can't imagine himself capable of crying at a film, get ready to have the rug pulled out from under your pretension. This film hits notes of truth in sadness that are specifically male, and completely missing from 99.99% of cinematography. You will cry not because you are manipulated, but because you recognize yourself in this gentle intellectual facing the glory of love, the pain of unfair tragedy, and the responsibility that endures beyond the drama. Whoever you are, whatever you believe, watch this wonderful film. Share it with a loved one.

Shadowlands is a wonderful movie, for so many reasons: the fact that it is about the author of the Narnia books (many people know nothing about him except for "Narnia"), the beautiful interiors and the academic, time-honoured atmosphere at the old university, philosophical thoughts, poetical language, the fact that Anthony Hopkins had the lead (everything with Antony Hopkins in it automatically becomes sublime!)... One wishes that one could have had a teacher like Lewis/Hopkins when one was young! :-) But best of all was the love story, of course. It was very romantic when the bogus marriage turned into real love, and the couple got married for real with a priest! This is of course a not uncommon theme in romantic movies - but this time it was about real people, and it had happened just like that in reality, which made the impact on the viewer even stronger! ...and it was of course even more tragic when Joy (the American wife) died, as love had come to C.S. Lewis so late in life...The reasons I give the movie "only" 9 stars instead of 10, are two. First, I did not find the American woman very sympathetic. It would have been much more fun with a nicer and more beautiful woman as Lewis'/Hopkins' great love... Of course it might be that she is portrayed accurately, but as the portrait of Lewis is also romanticized (he was not as handsome or charming as Hopkins! :-) ), the filmmakers could have used their poetical license to make the wife a more lovable character as well! The other reason is that I found the movie just a little too slow and long. It would have been a great improvement if they had shortened the slow parts with 10-15 minutes all in all.

Many years ago I read C.S. Lewis' wonderful book "A Grief Observed" - essentially his journal of his journey to rediscover his faith after the death from cancer of his wife Joy Gresham. I didn't deliberately steal the concept from Lewis, but perhaps he was at the back of my mind, since now, as a pastor, I often at funerals remind mourners that "grief is the price we pay for love." A concept similar to a central theme in both that book and this movie. This movie, which deals with the Lewis-Gresham relationship, surprised me in some ways. I had their relationship burned into my memory as a sudden and passionate thing, with Lewis being swept off his feet by this vivacious American divorcée. Instead, we see here a picture of a very cautious relationship that develops slowly. Lewis, the lifelong bachelor, meets Gresham and is clearly taken with her, but always maintains a distance. Even when they marry, it's - in Lewis' words - only "technically," so that Joy can claim his British citizenship as her own. The romance - the open acknowledgement of love - comes only after her diagnosis, when Lewis is forced to confront the fact that she gives his life meaning, and that he can't imagine life without her, and they're married "properly" - by clergy, before God and without hiding the fact. Then, of course, there is the remission of her cancer, its return and her death, which forces Lewis to re-evaluate everything he believes about God, in the end, coming back to the realization that pain is a part of happiness, and that God is not to be blamed for Joy's death, but thanked for her life.Although the movie is spiritual, it's not in your face religious. It's a human movie; a sensitive movie - in the end, it's very moving. There's a lot of theological reflection that takes place on the relationship between suffering and faith, pain and happiness and how God fits into the picture, but there's nothing here that demands that one be a believer to enjoy this. It's fascinating to see the evolution of Lewis, who - by the sudden love he feels for Joy - has to change virtually everything about his life; perhaps best summed up by the bedroom scene, in which, on the first night they share a room together, Joy asks him what his routine is. He describes it, but then admits that he doesn't know what to do now that she's part of it. She says something like "you do everything you did before, then you just lie down - and I'm here." That exchange summed up both the gentleness of the movie and the challenge for Lewis of re-evaluating his entire life and everything he believed. C.S. Lewis is best known, of course, as an author of children's books. Fewer people realize that he was also quite an accomplished theologian. Regardless of how you think of him, though, he is a fascinating man, and while this movie is certainly gentle rather than exciting and romantic rather than passionate, it provides a fascinating glimpse of his spiritual journey. One also shouldn't overlook the excellent performances from Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger in the lead roles. 8/10

Lord Attenborough is a man who wears his heart on his sleeve."Oh what a lovely war!","Cry Freedom","Ghandi",all were made with anger and passion unrestrained.None of them could be said to have been objective accounts of their subject matter and therein lies both his strength and his weakness.The same goes for "Chaplin",to my mind his best work by some distance,which he made immediately prior to "Shadowlands". In this lovingly - made small - scale movie Attenborough reverts to his own cinematic roots with a simply - told tale of an English Academic in the dry,fusty world of Oxford in the 1950s and his relationship with an American woman writer and her young son.There is no epic vision here,just a perceptive and sympathetic look at how the life of a confirmed bachelor(in the old - fashioned sense)is turned on its head just at the time when he was quite happily settled in an endless round of College functions,lectures and research in the great libraries of Oxford. Of course C.S. Lewis was not quite the typical Don inasmuch as he was also a popular and successful writer,but,as many of his kind he was much given to introspection and was not of the "It is what it is"school of thought.He was the sort of man who would intellectualise a boiled egg. Mr A.Hopkins plays him to minimalist perfection.Miss D.Winger is cast as his American admirer with a brilliant performance of brash vulnerability that she has never bettered . Their unlikely romance is allowed to develop at a proper gentlemanly pace,Lewis's internal conflicts superbly conveyed by Mr Hopkins without a superfluous gesture. Attenborough encourages fine work from his cast and the overall result is a well - observed rather moving piece redolent of the Rattigan/Lean canon,and,for me,a welcome return for him to the world of the small,personal movie.