"Shadowlands" had already been effectively done once before as a British TV-movie with Joss Ackland and Claire Bloom. It's poignance lay in it's ability to movingly tell the story of C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham *without* tampering with the facts. And in particular, the importance of Christianity in the lives of both Lewis and Joy was not watered down one iota. When Lewis goes through his crisis after her death, we hear quotations from his moving "A Grief Observed" that helped him regain focus on his faith, and the film ended with a powerful image of Lewis planning to tell his stepson Douglas about the meaning of faith.
Alas, this important element is completely missing from this ultimately pointless theatrical version of the story. To be sure there are fine performances by Hopkins and Winger, but in addition to the altered factual details (unlike the original telefilm, Joy's elder son David Gresham is zapped from existence this time out), this movie in typical arrogant Hollywood style decides to remove the importance of Christianity from both the lives of C.S. Lewis and Joy. The end result is something that is blatantly dishonest in the worst form, and one can only note that if Lewis and Joy were practitioners of any faith other than traditional orthodox Christianity, we would no doubt have not seen Hollywood (which will always have nothing but contempt for those of traditional faith) try to downplay this into meaninglessness.
Leave it to Hollywood to find a way of turning a story about the 20th century's greatest apologist for traditional Christianity into what is ultimately another of their typical backhanded anti-Christian swipes.
UPDATE: Four years later, I am amused to see the reasons for my negative view validated in so many of the positive reviews of this film, which again operate from the conceit that the importance of Christian faith in the lives of both C.S. Lewis and Joy is something that can be easily ignored. That is the ultimate testament to the historical dishonesty behind this movie because without the mutual element of faith, there is no story of these two. This was the point that the original BBC telemovie did NOT forget, and it accomplished it without giving us a non-stop sermon (which is what the apologists for this movie seem to think a critic like me would have wanted to see) but by judiciously inserting the moments of Lewis and Joy talking about faith, and giving us that poignant ending that lets us know that Lewis is serious about teaching Douglas the meaning of how to find the true faith in God that he has now recovered in the wake of Joy's death. That is the definitive telling of the story in a way that this one could only hope to be.
Alas, this important element is completely missing from this ultimately pointless theatrical version of the story. To be sure there are fine performances by Hopkins and Winger, but in addition to the altered factual details (unlike the original telefilm, Joy's elder son David Gresham is zapped from existence this time out), this movie in typical arrogant Hollywood style decides to remove the importance of Christianity from both the lives of C.S. Lewis and Joy. The end result is something that is blatantly dishonest in the worst form, and one can only note that if Lewis and Joy were practitioners of any faith other than traditional orthodox Christianity, we would no doubt have not seen Hollywood (which will always have nothing but contempt for those of traditional faith) try to downplay this into meaninglessness.
Leave it to Hollywood to find a way of turning a story about the 20th century's greatest apologist for traditional Christianity into what is ultimately another of their typical backhanded anti-Christian swipes.
UPDATE: Four years later, I am amused to see the reasons for my negative view validated in so many of the positive reviews of this film, which again operate from the conceit that the importance of Christian faith in the lives of both C.S. Lewis and Joy is something that can be easily ignored. That is the ultimate testament to the historical dishonesty behind this movie because without the mutual element of faith, there is no story of these two. This was the point that the original BBC telemovie did NOT forget, and it accomplished it without giving us a non-stop sermon (which is what the apologists for this movie seem to think a critic like me would have wanted to see) but by judiciously inserting the moments of Lewis and Joy talking about faith, and giving us that poignant ending that lets us know that Lewis is serious about teaching Douglas the meaning of how to find the true faith in God that he has now recovered in the wake of Joy's death. That is the definitive telling of the story in a way that this one could only hope to be.