Shadowlands

Shadowlands portrays Lewis as a naive old bachelor with little experience of life, sheltered if not positively shallow. But you tell me: when he was 10 his mother died; when he was in his late teens he entered the army, endured trench warfare, and was wounded; he saw his best friend killed in battle; honoring a pledge, he moved in with the friend's mother and sister and supported them for many years; he had a sexual relationship with his friend's mother, and although she was an extremely difficult woman he remained with her until her death; and during all these years his much-beloved brother Warnie was a binge drinker who often ended up face down in the gutter. Does this sound like a sheltered life to you? I can't speak for anyone but myself, but this strikes me as a pretty full life - he'd gone through more by the age of 25 than I have at 45. Lewis loved Joy Davidman, and she brought something important to his life. But to say he needed her to become a Real Human Being is condescension of the worst sort, and this aspect of Shadowlands's script is a kind of slander (perhaps a backhanded slap at Lewis's Christianity, which is "obviously" childish and unrealistic?).