Wit (2002)

A brittle professor of 17th-century metaphysical poetry is deconstructed by cancer in director Mike Nichols' adaptation of Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. The scholar-turned-research-project conceit is indeed witty, if at times overstated (as are the if-only flashbacks of Thompson being nasty to her students). But any tweediness is countered by McDonald's turn as a humane nurse, while fellow scholar Eileen Atkins' reading of the children's classic The Runaway Bunny is heartrending.