A renowned professor is forced to reassess her life when she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.A renowned professor is forced to reassess her life when she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.A renowned professor is forced to reassess her life when she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.
- Won 3 Primetime Emmys
- 13 wins & 21 nominations total
- Nurse
- (as Su-Lin Looi)
- Fellow 1
- (as Harry Dillon)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis movie is often shown at medical colleges as an example of how doctors and researchers should not behave.
- GoofsDuring her exam with the young internist, her arms alternate repeatedly from being completely under the sheet, to being folded together on top of the sheet.
- Quotes
E.M. Ashford: Do you think that the punctuation of the last line of this sonnet is merely an insignificant detail? The sonnet begins with a valiant struggle with Death calling on all the forces of intellect and drama to vanquish the enemy. But it is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insuperable barriers separating life death and eternal life. In the edition you choose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation.
E.M. Ashford: And Death, Capital D, shall be no more, semi-colon. Death, Capital D comma, thou shalt die, exclamation mark!
E.M. Ashford: If you go in for this sort of thing I suggest you take up Shakespeare.
E.M. Ashford: Gardner's edition of the Holy Sonnets returns to the Westmoreland manuscript of 1610, not for sentimental reasons I assure you, but because Helen Gardner is a scholar.
E.M. Ashford: It reads, "And death shall be no more" comma "death, thou shalt die." Nothing but a breath, a comma separates life from life everlasting.
E.M. Ashford: Very simple, really. With the original punctuation restored Death is no longer something to act out on a stage with exclamation marks. It is a comma. A pause.
E.M. Ashford: In this way, the uncompromising way one learns something from the poem, wouldn't you say? Life, death, soul, God, past present. Not insuperable barriers. Not semi-colons. Just a comma.
- SoundtracksSerenade Adagio
String Quartet #15 (2nd Movement)
Written by Dmitri Shostakovich (as Dimitri Shostakovitch)
Performed by The Manhattan String Quartet
Courtesy of Ess.a.y Recordings
Vivian is an 'experiment' dying alone. I can still recall the relief on the face of my mother when I brought up her imminent death. She was afraid of making ME fearful. I was privileged to share my mother's dying. She shared moments of regret, painful happenings and joyful events. It was one of the best things I have done as a human being.
Vivian is clearly relieved to 'know the score' when Susie tells her that medicine will not save her. Susie gives the dying Vivian, medicine of compassion. She touches her and thereby acknowledges her as a human being.
Enter the professor who leads Vivian to the moment of death. There is no need for intellectual poetry or sparring. Instead, the professor lies on the death bed holding and supporting her friend. Tears fall from Vivian's eyes, the professor merely confirms the difficulty. The children's story is read and the professor offers her opinion - It is an allegory of a soul. We do not know if Vivian supports this statement. We only know that she dies with the knowledge that she is loved.
"Out of the mouth of babes," is a scriptural quote that confirms the wit of simplicity. I, personally, needed the bunny story. However, many children's stories have incisive clues to live's mysteries.
I am puzzled about the negative comments. Have any of these writers witnessed dying? Why do so many people negate the virtues of kindness, sympathy, touch, love, etc with weakness or by a wave of his/her hand dismiss it as 'boring.' This was not a boring movie. If you saw it this way, you missed the point. Come back, say 10-20 years from now and review it again.
- cozycats5
- Oct 20, 2009
Details
- Runtime1 hour 39 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1