Wit

Wit is a superb film about cancer and facing death.

It chronicles the personal awakening of a longtime literary scholar (two-time Oscar-winner Emma Thompson), who learns the importance of simple human kindness when faced with the most daunting of crises: a diagnosis of advanced cancer.

The film's principal character is Vivian Bearing, Ph.D. (Thompson), a 48-year-old professor specializing in the forbidding work of 17th Century metaphysical poet John Donne. With biting humor and wit, Vivian approaches her illness as she would one of Donne's sonnets, aggressively probing and intensely rational.