wit

Emma Thompson has always amazed me.
This time she brings us the story of an intelligent and inspired woman who needs to deal with chemothreaphy (it's not her cancer but her treatment that is narrated in the movie). She has to deal with the treatment on her own, as most strong and intelligent women in modern times deal with numerous difficulties. But the tone is very sober, not overly dramatic. And her reflections make up a critique of the medical system, and the deeply painful loss of metaphysical inspiration. The movie is based on Margaret Edson's play, which I so far couldn't find any online copies of. But start with the movie... I rarely suggest a movie against a book. Often times books are tortured and murdered by Hollywood. Most recently I had to endure the gracious Deleuzian cyberpunk sci-fi book Babylon Babies by Maurice G. Dantec being turned on its head into Babylon AD. Just so that you know and skip at all costs; here is what wikipedia notes on the reception of the movie:

Director Mathieu Kassovitz was very unhappy with the distributors, 20th Century Fox, producers and other partners. He described the film as "pure violence and stupidity" and stated that "parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24."
The film was universally panned by critics.
Rotten Tomatoes records a 7% "rotten" rating (based on 87 reviews), with the consensus being: A poorly constructed, derivative sci-fi stinker with a weak script and poor action sequences.
Metacritic compiles a 26% rating based on 15 reviews.