Shadowlands

Everyone has a different point of view even if all of us are watching the same film. Like a kaleidoscope, things have many ways to reveal, many ways to make us feel. Shadowlands is a superb production where you could extract a variety of lessons to think about. Directing by an extraordinary Richard Attenborough, with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger on the top, without forgetting some of the goods like John Wood, the movie show us the relationship between a man and a woman, two different minds in the society of the 50’s in England.

As most of reviews note, the main theme is about how the relation of the main characters is developing. First, they meet each other because she admires him and his books. Then, they become friends. After that, there are a convenience marriage because of her nationality and the possibility of living there for her, Joy, and her son Douglas. At the end, she is diagnosed with a terminal cancer. She is subjected to a treatment. Jack is committed himself to caring about her and discover how much he loves her. Finally, she dies.

The paragraph above tells us the plot, but we can go farther. In my opinion, the real story speaks about the changes that Jack suffers during the film. At the beginning, he is a middle-age single man, with his own habits, with a particular idea of God among other things, who is used to win every fight, someone with a clear mind. When he meets Joy, he starts to change his behavior; it seems he runs after her. He is marveled at her manners, her way to see the world, but he does not know what is happening inside him, so he does the same things he use to do before her, even hiding their marriage. At the moment he knows she is going to die, he is not thinking about the others anymore, he recognizes his love and decides about living for the first time. Truly, I would say he is getting more handsome along the time is running, maybe because of the expression of his face. The final reflection with the new pupil is about love, something he has never had into account. The purpose to read is not to be alone, not to be alone is falling in love with someone.