Shadowlands

What does this 1993 film, based upon the true story of C.S. (Jack) Lewis and his American wife, Joy Davidman, tell us about grief, suffering and love? How is it related to the “problem of evil,” often discussed in philosophical and theological settings? How does the film contrast Lewis’s speaking appearances, where he discusses the subject, with the first-person experience he has with his wife’s suffering? How do Joy’s challenges to Jack’s relatively comfortable and cloistered life as an academic foreshadow the starkly raw emotional experience he has with her suffering? What is the point of the contrast? Why does Lewis, while in the depths of grief, compare God to a vivisectionist? In light of that harsh accusation, why does he not lose his faith? How does the tragedy bring him closer to Douglas, Joy’s son? What does Lewis make of what he describes as ‘God’s silence,’ in the aftermath of tragedy? What is symbolized by the painting Jack has in his study of a place called “the Golden Valley,” and how does the film utilize that symbol in its imagery?