| Wit | 
 enlarge | Director: Mike Nichols
Actors: Emma Thompson, Christopher Lloyd, Eileen Atkins, Audra Mcdonald, Jonathan M. Woodward
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.98
Buy New: $4.17
You Save: $5.81 (58%)
Buy New/Used from $3.99
Avg. Customer Rating:   (131 reviews)
Sales Rank: 2394
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 99 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.5 x 0.5
MPN: D91781D
ISBN: 0783118414
UPC: 026359178122
EAN: 9780783118413
ASIN: B00005MKKV
Release Date: September 11, 2001
Theatrical Release Date: March 24, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Based on the 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Margaret Edson WIT features the Academy Award winning actress Emma Thompson in a movie directed by Academy award winning director Mike Nichols. Vivian Bearing is an English professor with a biting wit that educates but also alienates her students. With her teaching and life both rigidly under control Vivian would never let down her defenses until the day comes when they are taken don for her. Diagnosed with a devastating illness Vivian agrees to undergo a series of procedures that are brutal extensive and experimental. For eight months her life must take an uncharted course. No longer a teacher but a subject for others to study. Vivian Bearing is about to discover a fine line between life and death that can only be walked with wit.Running Time: 99 min.System Requirements: Running Time 99 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre:DRAMA Rating:PG-13 UPC:026359178122
Amazon.com
Deservedly 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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| Customer Reviews: Read 126 more reviews...
 Couldn't get past the subject September 28, 2008
The early scenes in the doctor's office are just too uncomfortable for anyone with a fear of disease. I skipped the rest.
 More Wit than Want September 18, 2008
I love Emma Thompson - Kenneth Branaugh is a lucky man... She is an incredible actress! And Mike Nichols is a fine director.
That said, this movie simply lacked something. There were poignant moments and rich depth of emotion and acting. And, yes, Emma Thompson was superb at moments throughout the movie. But I find myself in the unenviable position of criticizing someone's account of devastating disease. Yet if I'm going to be honest, criticize I must.
I think what the movie lacked was pace (OK, let's leave any jokes about slow as death behind us right here!). It was slow - too slow - to the point where I found myself uncertain whether I identified with Thompson's character's pain or simply the movie's painfully slow march toward debilitation and death. And there you find yourself caught between wishing things would move faster and realizing that faster meant the demise of the character depicted before you.
I know it's difficult to convert a stage play to the big screen (probably why they released this as an HBO flick - to avoid the big screen) and the result often falls into one of three categories - slow, slower, or slowest... Mike, you didn't break free from this difficulty.
There, I've done it. Call me a heartless cad. Tell me my taste wouldn't fill a thimble. I wanted to like this movie - I really did. Sorry, Emma, I tried - mostly for you! But at the end of the day, this just didn't cut it for me.
Fair Entertainment but Great Movie August 16, 2008
This is not a movie one watches for the enjoyment of it but rather to gain experience and insight. I would recommend it to people curious about what one faces when diagnosed with terminal illness, English enthusiasts, and people curious about experimental filmmaking. The acting was superb. Emma particularly never disappoints.
Not Funny June 18, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Maybe I have not been fair as I did not watch all this movie, finding it depressing. Speaking for myself, don't like movies about sickness though admit there are many inspiring stories where people have triumphed over illness. Just not my bag.
 Amazingly moving movie March 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I applaud Emma Thompson for her breathtaking role in this moving portrait of a terminal cancer patient. Amazing. I cried at the scene where her old mentor read the children's story to her. Wit is what movies are supposed to be.
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