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Essentially, this version of Shadowlands maps Lewis's own journey from the intellectually impressive but not-lived-through and not-quite-convincing arguments of The Problem of Pain (1940) to the agonized heart's cry that is A Grief Observed (1961), which he began writing the very hour he returned home after Joy's funeral. The earlier book strives to construct answers and explanations, the later offers few. But it's the second of the books that Christians turn to in times of bereavement, and this film takes the viewer through the experiences that bring Lewis to his deeper humanity and wisdom. (The play makes this structure even clearer, opening not with a radio talk on marriage, but with an intellectually dazzling public address on God's responsibility for suffering in the world.)

BBC director Norman Stone, who identifies himself as a Christian, has a palpable affection and affinity for Lewis—not only in the winsome performance he draws out of Ackland, but in honoring all of the literary and theological elements in Nicholson's original script. This script draws on a wide range of Lewis's works, and it gives tremendous screen time to Joy and Jack as they get to know each other, in a literate conversation that ranges from conversion stories to theology and politics. Most significantly, while the teleplay takes Lewis in his grief to a point where God has slammed the door in his face, with "the sound of bolting and double bolting, and after that, silence," we also see him wake in the night and wander back out into those Narnian woods, where he finally can remember Joy and sense again something of God's presence.

Claire Bloom gives us a splendid Joy. As Jack and Warnie plod along a path, Joy darts in and out like an excited child, peppering the stolid brothers with a barrage of opinions and questions, all inhibition and intelligence and enthusiasm. There's spunk and savvy and sass enough in this performance to provide all the Yankee brashness the role calls for.

If anything, the subsequent stage version even more richly explores the world of words and ideas (naturally enough, since plays tell their stories in words, movies in pictures) while sharpening the moment-to-moment dramatic thrust of the story. Where the BBC film can feel talky, the play shows considerable dramaturgical development: the story is always moving forward. The play is also less bound by the movies' need to be "realistic," incorporating a deeply moving series of images drawn from The Magician's Nephew where Douglas enters the wardrobe and brings back a magic apple which he presents to his mother just after her marriage to Jack, just before her recovery. The act deftly suggests the possibility that her remission is as much miracle as medicinal, brought about by a child's faith.

The Attenborough version benefits from the stronger narrative craftsmanship of the stage play, and it also looks a lot better. Stone's Oxford is dreary as hell—specifically, that peculiar vision of hell Lewis describes in The Great Divorce—dismal, dingy, and always raining. But the bigger-budget version goes too far in the name of narrative drive, stripping out too much conversation, too much theology, too many ideas, almost all the literature—does Hollywood really believe people only know The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe? More seriously, it also truncates the ending of the story in a way that almost suggests Lewis abandoned his faith by the end of his life.

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