Richard Attenborough’s “Shadowlands,” adapted by William Nicholson from his play and an earlier BBC telefilm, is a literate tearjerker that walks softly but wields a big emotional stick. Anyone who sat through “A Chorus Line” or “Chaplin” has reason to be wary of Attenborough’s 10-ton touch, but here, at home in the English milieu and aided by Nicholson’s witty, finely honed screenplay, Attenborough redeems himself. if for no other reason, “Shadowlands” should be seen for Hopkins’s masterly performance, as delicately comic as it is heartbreaking. Confronted with the mystery of room service at a country inn, he gets maximum mirth out of the mere ordering of a gin and tonic. Confronted with a late-blooming love nothing has prepared him for, he unleashes a bolt of feeling as penetrating as anything he’s ever done. Winger has inspired moments as the blunt but crafty Joy, but the role isn’t as fully imagined as Lewis’s, and you wish she had more room to breathe. Nicholson’s grasp of his American heroine is a bit shaky: this smart, independent woman, a poet herself, at times comes off like a borscht-belt stand-up. But Winger is there where it counts–the chemistry between this gallant, ungainly American and the well-defended Brit is palpable and poignant. It’s a wonderfully unlikely, stiff-upper-lip love story. Bring a hanky. Better make it two.
