Wit (Widescreen)

Doctor Vivian Bearing, a tough, intellectual professor specializing in 17th century literature, takes on the challenge to undergo eight months of experimental chemotherapy and a combination of drugs to battle advanced metastatic ovarian cancer, in which she is in Stage 4, a cancer for which there is no Stage 5. She will also be studied by medical students, her illness being a significant contribution to knowledge. To be something studied, as opposed to a human being, yes, there's the rub, to quote the Bard. But she is a tough woman, never one to shirk a challenge.

For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

Most of the story has Bearing's soliloquys, spoken to the viewer from her hospital bed, bald-headed and wearing a hospital gown, describing what she's thinking and feeling, and she does so with wit. One learns of her fascination with words, her past history as a student and academic, how she has preferred research to humanity, and her tough style of teaching, which she got from her mentor, Professor E.M. Rumford. There's a fascinating discussion between Bearing and Rumford, where the original punctuation at the end of Donne's "Death Be Not Proud" included a comma in the line, "death, thou shalt die." In other words, a comma separates life from life everlasting. Yet when Rumford tells her to go hang out with her students instead of going to the library Bearing goes to the library. Later, when a young doctor, Jason, tells her how he's fascinated by cancer due to its smartness, calling it "immortality in culture," it's ironic that she wishes he would be more interested in humanity rather than research.

From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

As for flashbacks, there are times when we cut to a scene when she's a five year old reading a Beatrix Potter book, that she alternates between her five-year old self and as she is now, bald and in the hospital gown, symbolizing how fragile she seems despite bearing up.

And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.

She presents her illness in a paradox in the manner of Donne himself, when she says that with her immune system down, everything is a hazard, especially the health care professionals. She isn't in the isolation ward because she has a grapefruit-sized tumor, but because her treatment imperils her health. But she revels in the paradox, seeing it as an intellectual game. But when the cancer spreads elsewhere, she begins to get frightened, realizing her intellectual abilities isn't going to help her, but that she seeks simplicity and kindness, and that makes her regret she had been sympathetic to some of her own students. Fortunately, she finds that in Susie, the nurse, with whom she has a rapport with.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,

Juxtaposing this movie with my mother's recent battle with cancer did ring some emotional chords due to similarities. My mother wasn't as open as Dr. Bearing in her feelings when undergoing CT Scans, ultrasounds, colonoscopies, or the IPT chemotherapy. But she too looked for kindness and simplicity, and when a certain hospital worker wheeled her chair to a spot of sunshine on a cold day after a CT scan, my mother realized that maybe she was wrong in being too tough, and that she had hurt some people in her past.

And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;

This is by far Emma Thompson's best role ever, but Audra McDonald as Susie lends strong support as the very human and compassionate nurse, who sees Bearing as a human being, not a subject for study. Those who have just lost a dear one to cancer may find this painful going, others will find this a study of reflection one experiences when near the portals of mortality.

One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.