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That was an excellent one.

Excellent but underrated film

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Had the title not already been taken, and with Anthony Hopkins in the lead role, this film might have been called "The Remains of the Day". Both were released in 1993, and I was caught off guard watching Hopkins in roles that were so similar to each other in both stories. His character in 'Remains' if anything is even more walled off from his emotions, and one becomes frustrated seeing his character unwilling to express his feelings or even his thoughts on subjects of major import. He's somewhat more forthcoming as author C.S. Lewis in this film based on the writer's passionless life, until he meets an American poet who challenges his perceptions and gradually wins his heart.I'm always leery of Hollywood treatments of real life stories because they almost never treat their subjects truthfully, either by omission or commission. I read with interest the review posted here on IMDb by user 'Eric-62-2', who excoriates the picture for the way it diminished the importance of Christianity in the lives of both Lewis and Joy Gresham (Debra Winger). Oddly, I had a sense of that while watching the film, as Lewis's Christian faith profoundly affected his works, while the film barely touches on the subject. One also gets a sense that Lewis's marriage to Gresham ended quite suddenly due to her cancer, while in reality, they had four years together before she succumbed to her illness.It's probably fair warning for prospective viewers to have a box of Kleenex handy for this film, as there are any number of scenes that tug at the heart and leave one feeling despondent over the fate of Ms. Gresham and the son who will be left without a mother. A final scene in particular with Lewis and young Douglas (Joseph Mazzello) coping with their loss is particularly moving, though in the tradition of achieving something positive out of tragedy, the very final scene is one of Lewis and his son walking contentedly in a Golden Valley of their own making.

This is a very strange film, a most extraordinary film. C.S. Lewis and his brother are two unmarried professors in Oxford, living together in the same house. They are living in this haven of peace that Oxford is, entirely dedicated to learning and knowledge, to the maturation of men in the teenagers they get every year, year in and year out. It is their function, their aim, their target and they cannot be derailed from this perspective. Oxford is their own territory and their own world and the world has no limits within these limits of Oxford, and an eventual trip to London for a lecture, but never beyond. C.S. Lewis is a special case in that entirely ghettoized intellectual world. He writes stories for children, for the children he will never have. These stories are about a strange world beyond the bottom of a wardrobe in the attic of his home. A world of bad and evil, of fighting for good and against evil. And yet his life is a routine that would kill thinking out of any human being. But not him, and plenty others around him. They are righteously living in the comfort of academia. The top echelon of that academia. Till one day when an American woman and her young child comes up and asks for an autograph. And the ghetto implodes. The peace is gone, love takes its place. The diplomatic marriage will eventually give way to a real marriage, but on a sick bed in a hospital. She finds out, too late of course, she has bone cancer and will eventually and soon die. And that's how C.S. Lewis discovers there is another love he had never really thought of and certainly not experienced: love for another human being that becomes your horizon and for whom you are dawn and dusk at the same time. That love that makes you mute and talkative in the same minute, so much the one and so much the other that your tongue trips on your muteness and your words get strangled in your talk. Love as a feeling of total gift of yourself to the other and of the other to yourself, with the tremendous responsibility that goes along with it. And death then becomes an unacceptable step away from this reality. Death comes and love will never go away and will turn into suffering, longing, wanting, needing and never getting the satisfaction you could ever wish to get. Love is for life I was going to say, oh yes, love is for life and even beyond life, for death if it comes and when it comes. Love never turns into ashes and never goes back to dirt because it is not dirt, it is the soul of the heart and the mind of life. And that's what C.S. Lewis actually discovers late in his life and never forgot after that. He finally learned how to be a fully blooming man, but it hurts so much when you learn love from within the death of your beloved. I must say the slow rhythm of the film, the very intimates scenes, the delicacy of the language and the acting, and the art of Anthony Hopkins serve that theme so well, so beautifully. It seems to be able to last for ever and ever, and yet the young son, now step-son, is there to remind you the show of life goes on for ever and ever on the stage of the strutting human beings we are.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

Richard Attenborough is a classy fellow who deserves to be recognized as a great film director. His more recent "Grey Owl" is brilliant! This film moves the heart like no other film I have ever witnessed! "Forrest Gump" gently touches the nerve endings. This film rams the gut! But what a classy production this is all the way through. A beautiful mellifluous script with tenderly rendered scenes of sensitive acting will have any audience in full approbation clamouring for more. I have said enough. You will cry in this one. Hopkins as a leading man makes C.S. Lewis human. This is a wonderful, tender, gentle-paced film that will stand the test of time! Mark my words! Own it today!

I have read the first page of the above reviews, and cannot find fault with anything contained therein. This movie is an emotional experience making us all think about life, death and and our own personal views of these things. I guess it must work 100% for anyone who is only a moviegoer and likes this sort of thing. However, to really appreciate the deeper messages in the film, I think one would need to be a little familiar with Lewis's whole life and his writings. Perhaps in this respect I was expecting too much of a mere movie. The inaccuracies were also a little disconcerting, for instance Joy only appears to have one son, but I do understand this was done for dramatic effect, rather than a "goof"! I guess this film can be described as a biopic. It should certainly never be presented as a biography, and I trust it never has been, or will be in the future. Film-makers have the funds to make a biography which should be accurate in historical and geographical detail. It can also be controversial, which this film is not and was never intended to be. In other words, even in this highly dramatised account of Lewis's love life, I would have liked to have seen some reference to his sexual experiences before meeting Joy, and I would have liked to have had a little more information given on Joy's motives for writing to Lewis and ultimately visiting him. I think in real life, Joy was already aware of her cancer before she even travelled to England the first time, because it was very far advanced when it was finally diagnosed. To meet a very well-established Englishman, to be able to settle with her son(s) permanently in the UK, seems to me a perfectly reasonable thing for her to have planned. I wonder if C. S. Lewis ever thought of that possibility before he died? An excellent film, and recommended even for anyone more interested in the really true lives of famous people.