Review: Wit

Here heavens appoint
My pilgrimages last mile; and my race
Idly, yet quickly runne, hath this last pace,
My spans last inch, my minutes latest point,
And gluttonous death, will instantly unjoynt
My body, and soule
Holy Sonnet VI: This Is My Play's Last Scene, Here Heavens Appoint by John Donne

Wit (2001), movie for TV directed by Mike Nichols.
Teleplay by Nichols and Emma Thompson, based on a Pulitzer Prize (1998) winning play by Margaret Edson.

Holy crap the writing was good. Lingered long enough to read the credits. Co-written by Emma Thompson - am not surprised. She is, by far, one of my favourites. The movie starts off with her playing Vivian Bearing, cancer patient. Through the movie, we catch glimpses of Prof Bearing, literary chair at some unnamed university. Strong and intelligent, dying of advanced ovarian cancer, on some drug trial.

The script has you laughing at her (for want of a better word) wit. She takes on the whole hospitalisation process with dry humour, sarcasm and (to my utter delight) speaks to the audience directly, looking straight into the camera, explaining jargon, procedures, feelings & why nurse Susie offers her a Popsicle. It's like the movie is a personal conversation.

I am not detracting from the acting - that was really good as well. She is not one to shy from the ugliness of the process of dying. I found myself completely swept up in the power of her utter helplessness (oxymoron intended), the baldness of her head, the pale, cracked lips trembling as she is bent in half with pain... even the stereotypical regret of how clinical she ran her life and her classroom, versus how she nearly begs for humanity from her doctors, and shamelessly fakes a blocked tube to get the same from Susie.

I highly recommend this movie. The prose is as good as the poetry, the story well told. The actors are efficient and accomplished. You'll recognise a few familiar faces I'm sure. It is a simple and effectively-told story with a sad ending, but you expect it. It makes no pretensions.

I adore!