Wit
by Mike Nichols
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DVD details
Actor: Audra McDonald, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Atkins, Emma Thompson, Jonathan M. WoodwardDirector: Mike Nichols
Brand: Warner Brothers
Writer: Emma Thompson
Writer: Mike Nichols
Producer: Cary Brokaw
Producer: Charles F. Ryan
Producer: Julie Lynn
Producer: Michael Haley
Writer: Margaret Edson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 99 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-09-11
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Hbo Home Video
DVD Reviews of Wit
DVD Review: Brilliance on all sides
Summary: 5 Stars
It seems to me that certain matters can be understood, that is to say, experienced at arms length back here where it's safe, only with art. If your loved one dies of a terrible progressive illness, you know the experience intimately. Yet understanding may take awhile, if it ever comes. If you yourself are desperately ill, you live in a cocoon of pain, embarrassment, fear and anger. You experience this only to the degree your mental capacity remains unimpaired. Understanding your experience may be a low priority. Yet, this film, like the ennui of Waiting for Godot, or the visual assault of Jackson Pollack, the cynicism of Lolita, or the anguish of Mahler's last adagio, sends us flying - transported to a place where we have, finally, an understanding, a closure. This film is a quiet little diamond - you can look at it from any angle and find not suffering, not degradation, but transcendent light. The greatest art shows us how rich life can be.DVD Review: 3 stars out of 4
Summary: 4 Stars
The Bottom Line:
Smart, insightful, and elegaic, Wit is a moving film about a lonely and intelligent woman preparing herself for death; although the direction sometimes gets a bit too gimmicky (as when Emma Thompson is inserted into her childhood memories) and the pace is too slow for the film to be described as "entertaining," Wit is a very good film that deserves to be seen.
DVD Review: Wit
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a marvelous video. Anyone who has had a cancer victim in their family should watch it.DVD Review: Wit
Summary: 5 Stars
Awesome in the truest sense of the word. Emma Thompson is brilliant in this role!!!
Anyone who has been touched by cancer or has family or friends touched by cancer MUST see this movie. It is a heartbreakingly honest film. Not an easy film to watch because of the raw emotion but it is a must-se. Even though the outcome is NOT a Hollywood "happily ever after" it is a wonderfully worthwhile film.
I cried I laughted I was outraged and I was deeply touched. See this movie!!
DVD Review: A painful yet must-watch for the message it delivers
Summary: 5 Stars
I had put off watching "Wit" as I wasn't sure how I could get through a movie devoted entirely to one person suffering through cancer until her ultimate demise. Well, I finally watched it and I must say - it's hard to sit through this emotionally-searing movie, yet it does get many points across.
The multi-talented Emma Thompson [who also co-wrote the screenplay] plays English Literature Professor Vivian who is diagnosed with stage 4 Ovarian cancer and is persuaded by her doctor [Christopher Lloyd] to undertake an experimental therapy with maximum dosage drugs. The viewer is then taken along on Vivian's journey through the world of cancer treatment - when we next see her [after her diagnosis], Vivian is bald and so we understand she has already undergone chemotherapy - she then takes us via flashbacks to her initial treatment, tests and so on before proceeding to the present.
The dialogue, especially when Vivian is talking to us is filled with wit [just as the title implies] as she helps us understand her pain, frustrations and fear - but it is also a searing indictment of the clinical and callous manner in which many members of the medical establishment treat patients - the lab technician who leaves Vivian waiting in an uncomfortable chair as he goes out on his break, the former student turned doctor who leaves Vivian strapped on a gynaecological examination table as he looks around for a female assistant, the indifferent and impersonal doctor etc - these people are so devoid of human warmth and treat their patient as though they were just a specimen and not a person. My own experiences with some members of the medical establishment bears this out, though I have come across some pleasant nurses and the nurse who forms a bond with Vivian here, Susie [Audra McDonald] embodies those that truly do nurse the body and soul of their patients.
"Wit" is an absolute tearjerker and many parts had me cringing, yet it is compelling, insightful and poignant. There are two memorable scenes in this movie that have stayed with me - one in which Nurse Susie brings Vivian popsicles and sits down to share it with her whilst speaking about an important subject, and the most poignant is when Vivian's former professor comes to visit and climbs into bed [Vivian is on her deathbed] with Vivian and just holds her whilst reading "The Runaway Bunny" by Margaret Wise Brown. Be sure to keep the tissues on hand as you watch this!
Description of Wit
Vivian bearing is a disciplined english professor who finds her rational approach to live overturned when she is diagnosed with cancer. No longer a teacher but a subject for others to study vivian is about to discover a fine line between life and death that can only be walked with wit. Studio: Hbo Home Video Release Date: 06/01/2004 Starring: Emma Thompson Christopher Lloyd Run time: 99 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Mike NicholsDeservedly hailed as one of the best films of 2001, Wit makes it clear why top-ranking talents seek refuge in the quality programming of HBO. Unhindered by box-office pressures, director Mike Nichols and Emma Thompson turn the most unglamorous topic--the physical and psychological ravages of cancer--into an exquisite contemplation of life, learning, and tenacious, richly expressed humanity. In adapting Margaret Edson's compassionate, Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Nichols and Thompson open up the one-room setting with a superb supporting cast. But their focus remains on the hospital experience of Vivian (Thompson), a fiercely demanding professor of English literature whose academic specialty--the metaphysical poetry of John Donne--is the armor she wears against the cruel indignities of her cancer treatment. While losing all that she held dear, she reassesses her life as an aloof intellectual, and Wit illuminates her bracingly eloquent and deeply moving struggle for dignity, meaning, and peace at life's ultimate crossroads. --Jeff Shannon
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