Impeccable performances by Anthony Hopkins, Debra Winger and especially Edward Hardwicke (as Hopkins' brother) illuminate this story of the initially unspoken love affair between the academic and author CS Lewis and the Jewish Communist American poet Joy Gresham.

It's their efforts that touch the heart in this otherwise dusty account of a dying woman that might almost almost be called A Stately Way to Go.

Director Attenborough has not so much filmed William Nicholson's fine play as embalmed it.

But the dialogue, as literate as Lewis himself, and with a welcome sense of gallows humour, proves a sturdy ally to the actors' efforts.

"See what it takes to make me see sense," smiles Hopkins, as he tells Winger he loves her (following a marriage of 'convenience' to help her stay in Britain) after learning she has cancer.

"Think I've overdone it?" she replies.

A film that will bore children, though patient adults will find the dialogue and acting enough to sustain them.