Based on Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Emma Thompson plays a not-especially-sympathetic English professor with a grave diagnosis that forces her to reflect on her life and values. There is plenty of genuine wit here, but also profound enactments of the dualities between life and death, solitude and community, art and science, the heart versus the head. Brilliantly acted (especially by Thompson) and brilliantly directed (by Mike Nichols). The music and cinematography are also excellent.