Deservedly hailed as one of the best films of 2001; Wit makes it clear why top-ranking talents seek refuge in the quality programming of HBO. Unhindered by box-office pressures; director Mike Nichols and Emma Thompson turn the most unglamorous topic--the physical and psychological ravages of cancer--into an exquisite contemplation of life; learning; and tenacious; richly expressed humanity. In adapting Margaret Edson's compassionate; Pulitzer Prize-winning play; Nichols and Thompson open up the one-room setting with a superb supporting cast. But their focus remains on the hospital experience of Vivian (Thompson); a fiercely demanding professor of English literature whose academic specialty--the metaphysical poetry of John Donne--is the armor she wears against the cruel indignities of her cancer treatment. While losing all that she held dear; she reassesses her life as an aloof intellectual; and Wit illuminates her bracingly eloquent and deeply moving struggle for dignity; meaning; and peace at life's ultimate crossroads. --Jeff Shannon