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Margaret Edson's Pulitzer-winning script is faithfully adapted to the
small screen by director Mike Nichols and star Emma
Thompson in
this HBO special. Thompson plays Vivian Bearing, a
professor of
17th Century poetry specializing in "the Holy Sonnets
of John Donne."
The intellect is everything to Vivian--which is why,
when she is
diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer--"there is
no stage five"--she
agrees to undergo aggressive chemotherapy in the name
of cancer
research. "You must be very tough," her doctor tells
her, and Vivian is
nothing if not tough--a tough professor who is tough
on her students.
Yet as her treatment--and her cancer--progresses,
Vivian finds that
what she needs most isn't the cold rationality with
which she's lived
her whole life and which is amply evidenced by the
hospital staff
attending her, but the simple human kindness shown by
her primary
nurse and her former mentor. This beautiful
meditation on death and
humanity is shot in close-ups that linger on Emma
Thompson's spare,
emotionally naked performance. Nichols's sure-handed
direction
brings out both the script's own wit and its
poignancy.
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