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  Average Rating for Shadowlands - 4 out of 5

  
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• Shadowlands

  Yvonne Iversen 30 April 2006

  

  Shadowlands is a true story about C.S.Lewis, the author behind The Chronicles of Narnia. Known as Jack, played by Anthony Hopkins, he teaches at Oxford College during the 1930s.
  An American fan, Joy Gresham, played by Debra Winger, arrives with her son to meet Jack for tea in Oxford. Jack lets Joy stay in his house, which he shares with his brother. Jack and Joy develop a friendship, but the time comes when she has to go back to America. She's running away from an unfaithful and violent husband.
  Eventually, Joy comes back to England after divorcing her husband, and settles down in London with her son. Jack and Joy then develop an ever closer and warmer friendship. Jack marries Joy "technically", so that Joy can stay in England. Jack then discovers exquisite happiness in later life through his marriage. When it turns out that Joy is struck by cancer, Jack's beliefs and new found fulfillment are shattered by Joy's struggle against an unexpected and devastating illness. But it is not untill then they actually get to talk things through, that they actually love each other. They decide to make the best of the time that is left. Like Joy puts it; We can't have the happiness of yesterday without the pain of today. That's the deal.
  I will always remember Anythony Hopkins's (as Jack) last words in this movie, at the end; Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: 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.
  A movie that touched me deeply, and I haven't cried so much over a film since I saw The Color Purple the first time. I don't know whether it's the story which is true, or the dramatisation, or the characters. I only know that I know how it feels, because I lost someone close myself in cancer. And I do recall the loneliness of this character Jack.

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The tragic, true story of British author C.S. Lewis' love affair with American poet Joy Davidman.

Richard Attenborough directs this adaptation of William Nichoson's play based on the true story of the love affair between C.S. Lewis and American Joy Gresham. Oxford don and acclaimed novelist (The Narnia Chronicles) C.S. Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) lives a quiet and reflective existence with his brother in a remote cottage outside the university town. However, his life is turned upside down when he strikes up a friendship with free-spirited American Joy (Debra Winger). The couple begin to fall in love, and they are drawn even closer after Joy is diagnosed with bone cancer.