Wit (2001)

If you recall the "Paper Chase" (1973) you'll be familiar with the concept of a hard-nosed academic who teaches students with a barely veiled sense of contempt and ruthlessness. Well skip on almost three decades and it's Emma Thompson's "Vivian" who rules her class of English literature students with a similarly unforgiving rod of iron. Then she starts to feel a bit ropey and after a visit to her doctor (Christopher Lloyd) is told she has a metastatic ovarian cancer that is going to need one hell of a brutal chemotherapy treatment if she is to have any chance at all of survival. Attended now by "Jason" (Jonathan M. Woodward) a former pupil who claims to have revelled in her John Donne classes of metaphysical poetry, and nurse "Susie" (Audra McDonald), we follow her increasingly intense and debilitating treatment whilst flash-backing through her own life as a timid academic under the tuition of the equally formidable "E.M." (Eileen Atkins). Aside from those occasional retrospectives, we spend most of the film in her hospital room where she initially delivers something akin to a video diary to the camera - complete with some acerbic observations about her "having a nice day"; but as the drugs begin to take their toll; her hair falls out; her skin turns a jaundiced tone of yellow and the pain starts to kick in, we witness the direct impact of her illness on this woman whose strengths are gradually being eroded. There is something viscerally effective about Thompson's effort here. Her portrayal of a character gradually stripped of her intellect and her dignity is really quite difficult to watch - especially as we reach a conclusion. The engaging Woodward works really quite well here, too. His almost flighty approach to his patient - something of the pop in, sign the form, check the machines then move out approach to his work is symptomatic of the time constraints put on any doctor, but as he observes her decline both physically and psychologically, we can see the effect that is having on his own enthusiasm for a vocation that has, hitherto, been untouched by this kind of trauma. McDonald and an ice lolly are also worth mentioning here as both symbolise quite touchingly one of the few scenes where care appears to be important throughout this drama, and it showcases something of the human elements that must make nursing such a rewarding yet draining profession. As cinema depictions of this pernicious disease go, this presents us with an authentically chilling exhibition of just how destructive cancer can be and of just how toxic and destructive it's treatments can be too.