A review from a 20yr old male. (trying to be as fair as possible) (LONG)

I figured the only way to keep myself on topic was to have a clear outline as to how I would talk about the film. So it does turn out to be a bit choppy in places.

Wit is the “made for TV” film produced by HBO Films. This film is based on the play W;t. The original play was written by Margaret Edson. Emma Thompson and Mike Nichols created the teleplay of the script based of off Edson’s play. Wit was directed by Mike Nichols. Emma Thompson also plays the lead role Vivian Bearing. Christopher Lloyd plays Dr. Harvey Kelekian. Audra McDonald plays Susie Monahan, and Jonathan M. Woodward plays Dr. Jason Posner. Since this was a film version of the play only the best shots of each scene were used, so it is hard to say if there were any flaws in early takes of each scene. The film shows us a person’s struggle with life after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Vivian is a university professor who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. She has devoted her life to her studies, and has seemingly lost her humanity. Once she starts treatment it appears that she becomes treated just as she had treated her students. This becomes more apparent when one of her students is a leading doctor in cancer research and works closely on her case. The ideas presented worked very well on film. While at first I was unsure as to why Vivian continuously would talk to the viewer, it was shown that she had no family or friends to talk to. Even the doctors did not seem to care about Vivian personally, so the viewers were the only people that she could talk to. There was only one minor change to Vivian’s character from the original text. She was pre-menopausal in the play and post-menopausal in the film. It really helped to have her post- menopausal, because this shows that there is no chance for her to have a family if she does become cured by the end of the story. This puts even more emphasis for her character to live for today, rather than using the future as an excuse.

There was only one major flaw I found in presenting ideas this way. No one ever commented on her behaviour. For a play that is very believable and set in our world, Edson, Nichols, or Thompson should have realized that people may perceive her as crazy at first. A simple solution to this would have been having her whisper or to have Vivian talk under her breathe. The best idea they could have used was having Emma record all of these lines and have the audio play over the scene with herself in the scene acting as if she was thinking these things. This would allow her to always talk to the viewers of the film, but never raise suspicion of mental illness. This becomes more of a problem when you realize that she is constantly surrounded by well trained doctors or nurses.

The director, Mike Nichols, had a very clear idea of the plot and the characters, and aside from the one major flaw, I feel that Nichols did an amazing job in casting and in directing the film. If you allowed yourself to be swept into this world you will become attached to the characters and begin to care about them. Nichols did change the ending of the film to make it flow nicely with the rest of the play. This happens because the director does not expect you to have the play memorized line by line. The ending of the play only works when you are able to look back at the lines before. In a film or on stage the director shouldn’t expect minor themes to become major themes just to have a cathartic ending.

The acting was well above average. It was a nice surprise to see such well acted parts with a “made for TV” film. Emma Thompson showed the range needed to play Vivian. Since Vivian kept everything bottled up inside, so did Thompson. When Vivian should display an emotion, Thompson does a convincing job of displaying these emotions without breaking character. It is hard to say what was Vivian’s character and what was Thompson. Christopher Lloyd has a very small role, playing Dr. Harvey Kelekian. Lloyd brings the same charm that we have seen in his past roles. Audra McDonald plays Susie Monahan who is a nurse. She is the only person in the hospital that seems to care about Vivian as a person. McDonald’s acting plays a convincing role, and knows how to handle each scene that she is in. Dr. Jason Posner is played by Jonathan M. Woodward. Jason is the Vivian Bearing of cancer research. His character is supposed to be parallel with Thompson’s character before she is diagnosed with cancer. The one problem with the casting was Lloyd and Woodward have played such similar roles in the past that you may forget that they are different characters. This is however no fault of the actors, the roles are very similar. All the characters played their roles like you would expect from reading the script.

The world inside the play Wit is set in our modern time, and the majority of the play takes place within a hospital. While I believe the hospital sets were built, the set designers had a large enough budget to make it feel as if it was a real hospital. The scenes outside of the hospital looked to be actual locations in the USA. This helps keep the viewers believing what they are seeing. The lighting did not seem out of place. Shadows were cast on people’s faces not to show intention but because that is how the lights would actually light up a person’s face in our world. In the scene were Thomson is flat in her hospital bed, she rolls her head back to talk to the camera and the viewers, there were no extra lights being shone on her face. It is the little things like this that show that the director was able to create a believable world. Costumes and the make up fit the roles. Nurses and surgeons wore scrubs; doctors wore dress clothes with lab coats; cancer patients had no hair. All of this helps keep everything in our world. The sounds and the music used fit each scene, but were easily forgettable once they had moved onto the next piece of score. The only piece of music that sticks with you is the final song used at the end of the film. It shows the simple nature of the scene and is played on the right instruments to convey the emotion of it also.

Since this was a copy of the DVD, there was no audience watching Wit with me. To find some responses that people have had towards this play, I searched online. No surprises were found. The large majority of viewers were females and students who have read the play. Most reactions were that the film was very moving and powerful. A large majority of the students that have read the play before watching the movie found that the changed ending was not the ending that they wanted to see. The only ending that would be good for these students is the exact ending that you find in the play. Though I can understand the complaint, the ending to the play would only work in a playhouse and would look very clichéd and extremely out of place if it was done on film. The ending in the play had Vivian strip naked and “walk into the white light”. The film version just had it show her dead and lying on the hospital bed, then everything appeared to slow down, and it faded to a picture of the healthy Vivian lying in the hospital bed. I found the entire film to be enjoyable until the final scene. I felt that both the play and the film had not left me feeling satisfied with the ending. Both the play and the film were amazing experiences, but I felt that with such strong writing throughout the story that the ending fell short of the rest. Even though the ending wasn’t everything I had hoped for, the story felt very real, as if I was watching everything from behind a one-way mirror. The film did stay true to the source material, which is a major positive. If you want to have your emotions played with then I highly suggest buying this DVD. If you are looking for something with a lot more depth, I would suggest renting or borrowing the DVD because nothing new is presented in the filmed version from the play.


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