To me, this movie is perfection.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It's 1952. C.S. 'Jack' Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) is an Oxford University teacher and the author of 'The Chronicles of Narnia' books. He lives with his brother Warnie Lewis. Married American fan Joy Gresham (Debra Winger) comes to England with her young son Douglas to meet C.S. Lewis. The outspoken woman doesn't fit within the reserved academic atmosphere but Jack likes her spark. She has left her husband who wants a divorce to marry his third. He's also a drunk. They start a relationship.It's a slower moving romance with a bit of comedy. These are two older characters in a mature relationship. It's an effective biopic but not that compelling for me. It could be interesting for C.S. Lewis fans or Richard Attenborough fans. Both Hopkins and Winger are great. I personally find it a bit too slow but still a fine watch.

Shadowlands is a wonderful movie, for so many reasons: the fact that it is about the author of the Narnia books (many people know nothing about him except for "Narnia"), the beautiful interiors and the academic, time-honoured atmosphere at the old university, philosophical thoughts, poetical language, the fact that Anthony Hopkins had the lead (everything with Antony Hopkins in it automatically becomes sublime!)... One wishes that one could have had a teacher like Lewis/Hopkins when one was young! :-) But best of all was the love story, of course. It was very romantic when the bogus marriage turned into real love, and the couple got married for real with a priest! This is of course a not uncommon theme in romantic movies - but this time it was about real people, and it had happened just like that in reality, which made the impact on the viewer even stronger! ...and it was of course even more tragic when Joy (the American wife) died, as love had come to C.S. Lewis so late in life...The reasons I give the movie "only" 9 stars instead of 10, are two. First, I did not find the American woman very sympathetic. It would have been much more fun with a nicer and more beautiful woman as Lewis'/Hopkins' great love... Of course it might be that she is portrayed accurately, but as the portrait of Lewis is also romanticized (he was not as handsome or charming as Hopkins! :-) ), the filmmakers could have used their poetical license to make the wife a more lovable character as well! The other reason is that I found the movie just a little too slow and long. It would have been a great improvement if they had shortened the slow parts with 10-15 minutes all in all.

Richard Attenborough is a classy fellow who deserves to be recognized as a great film director. His more recent "Grey Owl" is brilliant! This film moves the heart like no other film I have ever witnessed! "Forrest Gump" gently touches the nerve endings. This film rams the gut! But what a classy production this is all the way through. A beautiful mellifluous script with tenderly rendered scenes of sensitive acting will have any audience in full approbation clamouring for more. I have said enough. You will cry in this one. Hopkins as a leading man makes C.S. Lewis human. This is a wonderful, tender, gentle-paced film that will stand the test of time! Mark my words! Own it today!

I have read the first page of the above reviews, and cannot find fault with anything contained therein. This movie is an emotional experience making us all think about life, death and and our own personal views of these things. I guess it must work 100% for anyone who is only a moviegoer and likes this sort of thing. However, to really appreciate the deeper messages in the film, I think one would need to be a little familiar with Lewis's whole life and his writings. Perhaps in this respect I was expecting too much of a mere movie. The inaccuracies were also a little disconcerting, for instance Joy only appears to have one son, but I do understand this was done for dramatic effect, rather than a "goof"! I guess this film can be described as a biopic. It should certainly never be presented as a biography, and I trust it never has been, or will be in the future. Film-makers have the funds to make a biography which should be accurate in historical and geographical detail. It can also be controversial, which this film is not and was never intended to be. In other words, even in this highly dramatised account of Lewis's love life, I would have liked to have seen some reference to his sexual experiences before meeting Joy, and I would have liked to have had a little more information given on Joy's motives for writing to Lewis and ultimately visiting him. I think in real life, Joy was already aware of her cancer before she even travelled to England the first time, because it was very far advanced when it was finally diagnosed. To meet a very well-established Englishman, to be able to settle with her son(s) permanently in the UK, seems to me a perfectly reasonable thing for her to have planned. I wonder if C. S. Lewis ever thought of that possibility before he died? An excellent film, and recommended even for anyone more interested in the really true lives of famous people.