Wit

Rating:
Summary: No Man is an Island
Review: Wit offers a sharply observed portrait of a professor of 17th Century poetry who is diagnosed with 4th stage ovarian cancer. There is no 5th stage, as she wryly observes. Dr. Vivian Bearing (brilliantly played by Emma Thompson) has spent her life studying the poetry of John Donne, to great scholarly acclaim. Yet in the final chapter of her life, she finds that she has never really engaged the poetry that has been her life's work. Until now, that is.

One would think that such a subject matter would be utterly depressing. Yet, it is oddly full of hope. And that is the genius of the film.

Donne's poetry is overtly referred to throughout the film. Yet in the scenes in which Bearing recalls her lectures on the subject, one learns little about the poetry. Donne's attempt to grapple with death is discussed in a superficial way by the characters. But the film's deeper meaning comes directly from Donne's writing.

Dr. Bearing has lived her life as woman who uses her intellectual prowess to avoid meaningful connections with people. As a result, she undergoes her long and painful illness with no companionship. Donne's famous line that "no man is an island" comes immediately to mind. When one turns to the meditation which is its source, one finds the following:

"When one Man dies, one Chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every Chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice, but God's hand is in every translation; and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that Library where every book shall lie open to one another."

Wit is about Bearing's "translation." She has worn the mask of intellectual self-sufficiency for her whole life. In her illness, every shred of her self-dignity is stripped away. She loses her hair; she is treated as an object by the medical system; she suffers pain; and finally she confronts her death. The beauty of the film is that by the end, she has lost everything that she thought mattered to her - only to find that it doesn't matter at all. In losing her self-dignity, she has found the genuine dignity that belongs to us all by virtue of our humanity. Her death is not empty suffering, but rather a fitting conclusion to her life - as she finally absorbs the meaning of the poetry that has been her life's work.

We come to care deeply for a woman who is not very likeable. In doing so, we come to see the connection that we all share as human beings.

Wit is an extraordinary film. One of the best that I have seen in the last few years.

Rating:
Summary: A must for future Healthcare providers
Review: I think that this should be required viewing for any future healthcare provider. Not only does it teach a lesson of the importance of kindness when it comes to patient care, it also helps give a glimpse into the world of someone used to complete control and then utterly stripped of it. It takes her back to the barest necessities, the first principles if you will of humanity. Healing does not always mean curing.

Rating:
Summary: A jaw-dropping emotional tour de force
Review: You'll note that at this point, 36 reviewers have raved about this film, and most recently, one reviewer rated it a single star and summed it up as "just another run of the mill TV movie". Don't you believe that reviewer for a second!
I've read many of this film's five star reviews here at Amazon, and would be hard pressed to say it any better than they already have -- this is simply an astoundingly good picture.
Don't think that because it's "made for TV" (HBO) that it might be a second class production. This blisteringly intimate voyage into the heart of humanity is... I don't know, words fail me, there are plenty of words here already telling you what is so special about this film. Just do yourself a favor, and watch it.
My 12 year old daughter wasn't quite mature enough to appreciate the subtleties of this masterpiece, and asked me and her mother why we cried. That might provide a clue to the prior "one star" review. I guess that person hasn't matured enough either, to appreciate this film. If ANIMAL HOUSE and CADDYSHACK are your favorite films, you might not find this to your liking, but if you appreciate films that speak to the heart, you'll be glad you discovered WIT.

Rating:
Summary: Hype
Review: Do not believe the hype on this film.It is not the great film it's made out to be.The only thing that saves this film is Emma Thompsons performance but it is not the performance of her career.This film did not win any awards at the Berlin film festival.This is just another run of the mill TV movie.

Rating:
Summary: A great movie... a movie with genuine Wit and emotion
Review: Wit is the story of a cancer patient, played by Emma Thompson, who soon learns her days may be numbered as she undergoes a controversial but potentially life-saving treatment. Suddenly, she realizes the treatment is killing her as well, and we begin to see her remaining days unfold.

This movie is wonderfully acted and skillfully directed. I've seen this movie four times and cry each time (How many movies can you say that about?) Roger Ebert named it one of the best movies of the year, despite it being on HBO, and I entirely agree with him.

This movie moves one to tears each time because it is at once witty and touching, and it takes you to a place rarely seen in movies these days... a place of genuine emotion.

The movie's true purpose is deceiving. On its most basic level, it is a movie about death. But on a higher plane (evoking the main character's favorite author, John Dunne) the movie is actually life-affirming, as we learn all too well her mistakes and hope we will not be as unlucky in our own lives. In other words, this movie not only asks us to watch Ms. Thompson's character die, but also to go outside and live ours more fully.

This movie is a wonderfully intelligent character piece that few people will be unsatsfied with.

Rating:
Summary: "Death be not proud..."
Review: This is an extremely moving portraial of life and comparison and "death's duel". Emma Thompson is remarkable, touching, briliant. Her charecter narrates us through her 8 month battle with ovarian cancer leading to the simple end that we all will come to--death. She was a rigid English professor who specialized in the paradoxical poetry of John Donne. Her own paradox: she spent her life being inflexable and without compassion, now she finds that the one thing that she truly longs for is compassion. She is dieing alone and is brought to question the value of her life's persuits in contrast with human interaction and connection. What we value in life often matters little when we meet our fate. It causes us to question the value of our own persuits and find the value in those we love. Beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: Brutal
Review: I gave this movie 5 stars ONLY for Emma Thompson's performance.
I was eager to see this movie after I read the rave reviews....and my sister is dying of Ovarian Cancer.
It is brutal....it tore my heart out and chewed it up.

The uncaring attitudes by people in the medical profession are horrendous......

I will have nightmares for a long time.

WARNING: You will cry non-stop and in the end you will want to smash your tv set.......this movie hurt.

Rating:
Summary: A must-see for anyone who will someday die
Review: Intense yet witty. Converted from the stage production by HBO. Don't expect action but be prepared to think and feel. Everyone can use a little introspection on occasion.

May be uncomfortable for some to view, but that should not deter everyone from making the effort. We're all going to die. Often, it's not pretty. Cancer is a cruel disease. We can learn from death as well as life, however.

Would be a great movie to watch as a family or with a discussion group. Lots of food for thought and discussion. It moved me to both tears and laughter. The humor will be especially appreciated by those who love words.

Rating:
Summary: Cancer doesn't care who you are
Review: This is essentially a story about a woman who used intellect to shield her from all she found unpleasnt--but cancer found a chink in the wall. Faced with impossible ovarian cancer, Vivian Bearing (an OUTSTANDING performance by Thompson) reevaluates every aspect of her life as she comes to terms with the fact that her cancer woes are no different than they would have been if she were very poor and uneducated--if you watch the hospital scences carefully, there are motley groups of "patients" around to emphasize this point. Her wit and dry humor is tempered with the brutal portrayals of a cancer patient's reality. I cried throughout the latter half of this film because I lost my own mother to cancer just 5 months ago. Cancer is hell, and one can't reach any other conclusion after watching this film. A word of advice: don't expect it to comfort anyone who is facing cancer. It won't do the trick.

Rating:
Summary: A death, played by Emma Thompson: A tour de force
Review: WIT is an uncompromising look at death by cancer - and the therapy designed to cure it.

Emma Thompson is Vivian Bearing, a Doctor of Philosophy and an aloof professor of 17th century English poetry. Her special interest is the metaphysical verse of John Donne, to which she's dedicated her scholastic life at the expense of human relationships. Now, at 48, she's diagnosed with stage-four metastatic ovarian carcinoma. There is no stage five. Her oncologist, Dr. Kelekian (Christopher Lloyd), recommends an aggressive, 8-month regimen of treatment with an experimental drug - at full dose. Because of the expected onerous side effects, he challenges Vivian to show fortitude and perseverance, and, never a slacker, she promises a stiff upper lip.

Much of the film is comprised of a series of monologs by Bearing as she addresses the camera, and the audience, with reflections generated by her dry WIT about the chemotherapy's appalling toll on her person and the process by which it is being exacted. At one point, after Kelekian and a train of acolytes visit Vivian in her hospital room, a medical teaching ritual known as Grand Rounds, she wryly observes that the exercise was:

"... full of subservience, hierarchies, gratuitous displays, sublimated rivalries. I feel completely at home. It is just like a graduate seminar."

WIT is a pointed indictment of the generalized insensitivity of medical caregivers to the terminally-ill patient, who comes to represent little more than a specimen cup, a form covered with scribbled observations, or, at best, a career-enhancing article in a medical journal. Jason (Jonathan Woodward) plays the shallow, research-minded physician completing a clinical fellowship under Kelekian's direction. Bearing asks what his reaction is to patients who express apprehension or fright. His clueless response: "Of whom?"

As the course of Vivian's treatment - or is it torture? - draws to its conclusion, her only source of human warmth and sympathy becomes her primary care nurse, Susie (Audra McDonald), and her only pleasure the eating of a popsicle, the lone "food" tolerated by a GI tract ravaged by the anti-cancer drug.

One of the most heart-wrenchingly poignant scenes ever put on celluloid has to be one near the conclusion when Vivian is visited by her aged mentor E.M. Ashford (Eileen Atkins). I'm not ashamed to say that my eyes teared.

WIT isn't an easy film to watch. I suspect any person undergoing cancer therapy can relate to it, and should therefore be seen by anyone providing oncology care. Viewing WIT should be absolutely mandatory in every medical and nursing school in the country.

This performance by Emma Thompson is an Oscar-caliber tour de force. It's a sad commentary on the film industry and the audiences it feeds that WIT's producers had to release it as an HBO movie rather than one for the Big Screen because it would have otherwise been steamrollered at the box office by the mindless thrillers that appeal to the masses.