Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger make Shadowlands worth the tears it carefully prepares. Richard Attenborough directs a moving romance, though Joy gets less room to be complicated than the man she loves.
Shadowlands is a moving romance that sometimes works too hard to keep its feelings respectable. Richard Attenborough approaches Jack Lewis’s fear of intimacy with patience, and Anthony Hopkins gives that fear enough weight to sustain the film. The question is simple: what happens when a man who has kept love at a distance allows someone close? William Nicholson’s screenplay makes the change easy to follow, sometimes too easy. We recommend it for the two leading performances, with reservations about how neatly it explains the relationship.
Hopkins is especially good at making reserve look like work. His Jack seems to be exerting himself to keep feeling from becoming somebody else’s business. We were moved by the effort Hopkins makes visible as that composure becomes harder to maintain. The performance gives us a reason to care about his growing openness without treating a reserved man as a puzzle that can be solved by finding the right woman.
Debra Winger makes that last possibility less comfortable than the writing sometimes wants it to be. Her Joy has enough force to suggest a life that does not begin when Lewis notices her, and the romance needs that independence. We believe she can disturb his determination to keep love at a distance. Nicholson is less interested in giving her equal space to be difficult or contradictory, which leaves Winger supplying much of the complexity herself. It is a strong performance in a part that ought to ask more of her.
Roger Pratt’s photography gives the film an inviting polish, while Stuart Craig’s production design makes Lewis’s protected existence seem comfortable enough to resist changing. The visual care suits a romance about somebody reluctant to disturb his life. Yet the handsome surroundings can also make painful feelings seem a little too safely presented. The use of landscape to suggest shifts in feeling is more persuasive: it gives us something to read without having the screenplay explain it.
Lesley Walker’s editing allows the performances time to register, and the measured pace usually suits the hesitation in Hopkins’s performance. There are stretches when we feel the next emotional step being prepared rather carefully, with little chance of being surprised by it. George Fenton’s music contributes to that sense of guidance, although its warmth is welcome when the film feels less insistent. Attenborough is more persuasive when he trusts the actors to carry a scene without quite so much assistance.
Within romantic drama, this is a familiar account of an emotionally guarded person learning to risk attachment. Attenborough treats that experience seriously, without making the people involved seem foolish for having taken so long. The limitation is Nicholson’s tendency to make Lewis’s awakening explain almost everything worth knowing about the relationship. Winger keeps suggesting there is more to Joy than the film has allowed for. Watch it for the pair of them, and be prepared to wish she had been given equal attention.
