Wit, a 2001 HBO movie starring Emma Thompson, has never really made much of an impression on the viewing public in the To be sure, Wit makes for anything but comfortable viewing. Depicting the suffering of an English Literature professor diagnosed with ovarian cancer, the setting never departs from the hospital, and the plot, if such a word ought to be used, is minimalist. For most of the 99 minutes, all the viewer is presented with is Emma Thompson speaking directly to the camera about seventeenth-century poetry.
Despite this (or, perhaps, because of it), what emerges is an astounding dissection of the human mind under stress. For much of the film I could barely tear my eyes away from the screen, and it was the monologues, not the action, which most inescapably held my gaze.
