Shadowlands, Britain 1993

This film is adapted from two sources: a BBC Wales film produced in 1985: and a stage play from 1989. Both were written by Williamson but the original idea was a script for Thames Television by Brian Sibley and Norman Stone. Brian Sibley also authored a book on the subject Shadowlands: The True Story of C. S Lewis and Joy Davidman. This film includes the stage play in the credits but not the earlier television production.

The film opens in 1952 in Oxford. C. S. ‘Jack’ Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) is a don at Magdalen College but also an established writers and popular lecturer outside the University. His writings include popular books, almost fairy tales, for children. He lives outside the city in a rural setting, likely the family home where he grew up,  with his brother Warren ‘Warnie’ (Edward Hardwicke); they have a servant, Mrs. Parrish, who cooks for them. And he is a member of a small College circle, all in some sense Christians.

He receives fan letters from a U.S. poet Joy Davidman (Debra Winger), She visit Oxford and thy meet at what looks like the Randolph Hotel; very upmarket. Joy is living apart from her husband, with her son Douglas Gresham (Joseph Mazzello). Lewis invites them to spend Christmas with himself and his brother. He learns that Douglas is a fan of his books.

Lewis is portrayed as a very self-contained character; there is no suggestion of any sexual interests, either heterosexual or homosexual. He also tends to dominate those around him, including Warnie and his fellow academics. Joy is much more of an extrovert and frequently breaks through British reticence. Lewis, and we, also gradually learn that she is separated from her husband who is both a philanderer and an alcoholic.

After a sojourn in the USA  Joy and Douglas return and re-establish contact with Lewis. In order to secure residency rights Joy asks Lewis to marry her. They go through a civil wedding at a registrar, notable without a ring. Audiences will start to suspect that Joy’s feelings are more than just friendship; and there are hints that Lewis’ feelings are changing. Then Joy is diagnosed with advanced cancer of the hip; likely to be terminal. Lewis feels obliged to care for her but then discovers that his feelings for her have become powerfully emotional. They now have a religious wedding with a ring.

Joy has a remission but it not long-lasting. They go for what is a delayed honeymoon on a trip to ‘The Golden Valley in Herefordshire. The trip is motivated by a picture of this scenic spot hanging in Lewis’ study, which has hung there since he was a child. A sympathetic landlady explains to them that the ‘golden’ is a mistranslation of French into Welsh; it is a valley of water. But they still find it beautiful and a moment of real romantic engagement.

Inevitably Joy dies and Lewis is distraught. Warnie, who has stayed in the background but particularly cared for Douglas, tells Lewis he must care for the boy. The film ends with a voice over of a phrase Lewis learnt from Joy as we see Warnie and Douglas out in the countryside.

The first conundrum is the title of the film. It reads like Sibley chose this term which was then picked up by Williamson. How much the original script and the subsequent t book fed into the play and film is unclear. The term ‘Shadowlands’ makes sense though. Lewis’ children books for which he is best remembered describe fantasy lands, with a Christian subtest. One really strong motif is a magical wardrobe where a child push pass a fur coat to enter the magic land. Douglas is struck by this and is keen to see the house’s attic. There is indeed a wardrobe but no magical entrance to another land. It is Warnie who first shows it to him but at the end it is Lewis who sits with him in front of the wardrobe and offers some consolation.  Predictably the attic is a room of shadows.

But the relationship with Joy also brings the shadow of illness and death into the life of Lewis; which appeared relatively untroubled before that.

The key characters in the film are Jack/Lewis and Joy. Hopkins’ Jack is a fine performance. Early in the film he presents this self-contained character, with little emotion on the surface. Later in the film both his emotions and his vulnerabilities emerge convincingly. Hopkins  performances tend to act out dominant characters. With Jack perhaps this overstates his confidence; but the performance can cope with the failure of this. There is a humorous moment when Jack cannot order room service over the hotel telephone properly; something is it is clear Joy can easily manage. Winger’s Joy is also a fine and convincing performance. Whilst she achieves the extrovert quality she also suggests that there is a more beneath the surface. The other fine performance is Hardwicke’s Warnie. This character is almost  always in the background but there is always a sense of where he fits. The screenplay leaves a question mark over Warnie, whose only role seems to be a companion to Jack. The actual Warner, the older of the two brothers, suffered from neurosis, something the film leaves alone. Young Mazzello as young Douglas is also fine: in fact, he is from the USA, but does not really convince as a young North American: presumably this is down to the production and/or the direction. The fellow academics only have small roles in the film but Michael Denison as Harry Harrington and John Wood as Christopher Riley both have important scenes, very different in tone.

The screenplay clearly is one of the major factors in the effectiveness of the film. It was identified by Attenborough’s colleague Diana Hawkins,

“I told him [Attenborough] William Nicholson’s screenplay was one of the best I’d ever come across, and unlike any other, had reduced me to tears.” (Memoir page 243).

Likely having worked on the play and then the film had enabled Nicholson to refine the narrative to its most effective. There are changes from the actual story and the play. Joy actually had two sons, both of whom were to live with Lewis after her death. Their ‘honeymoon’ was actually in Greece, but I suspect the idea of a British site seem to fit with the very traditional English flavour of the plot.

“The stage play opens with Lewis giving a talk about the mystery of suffering, whereas this film intersperses a similar talk several times throughout the narrative.” (Wikipedia)

In fact, what we observe in the film is a series of talks by Lewis to different audiences in different settings. Generally these are large affairs, one with several hundred in the audience and in a very large hall. The audiences include both genders but women are in the majority. Several themes emerge in these talks: how God can allow disasters: the nature of suffering: and what exactly is love.

What we only learn through the dialogue is that Joy was, at some point, a member of the Communist Party USA. This is not explored but Davidman came from a Jewish family and joined the Party in 1938; a common response to the decade of Fascism among intellectuals. The activities of HUAC may have been a factor for her sojourn in England. She took up Christianity in some form and, of course, Anglicanism was a central feature of Lewis’ life.

The production is extremely well done. It includes a number of regular collaborators with production designer Stuart Craig, composer George Fenton and production craft people Terry Clegg and Simon Kaye on sound. The fine cinematography was by Roger Pratt, who was to work again with Attenborough on In Love and War. The filming included the actual Magdalen College and The Golden Valley. Hawkins records six weeks of sunshine and a happy production.

The film received positive reviewed and did well at the box office, surpassing its production budget easily. There are limitations to the film. The most notable are down to the conventional treatment of narrative which one finds in films directed by Attenborough. The film does essay the emotional pain as Davidman grows sick and approaches death. But the physical pain, including the visual impact of illness, is lacking. This is common in mainstream movies; Love Story is a prime example; also a film with a cancerous illness. In real life the final illness of Joy must have been debilitating and chronic. The film seems almost bland at times but there is an understatement which is very effective and fits the characters. . A prime example is the end of the film. We see Warnie and Douglas out in the countryside as a voice over  by Lewis repeats a line he learned from Joy.

“Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers any more: only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I’ve been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That’s the deal. “

But running after Douglas is a dog, a spaniel; the first seen in the film. This is similar to the addition for the final scene on the beach of The Road, also a dog. One of the Hollywood tropes for signaling either things are well or a character is good.

In Technicolor and Panavision 2.39|:1, running time 131 minutes, [cut to 115 minutes in Canada].