Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton in a personally significant faith journey

In a very real way, all film reviews reflect, as much as the film, the critic’s own persona – the critic’s taste, experience, and specific reaction to the material presented in the film.

However, in the case of C.S. Lewis – The Most Reluctant Convert, the film had such enormous personal resonance with me that I need to warn the reader that what follows is less a review of the film and more my own very personal reaction to it. As the film played out, it constantly brought to my mind memories, linkages, and emotions of an entirely personal nature.

The film, based on a one-man play, is an attempt to narrate Lewis’ spiritual journey from atheistic materialism and a total lack of interest in Christianity to his ultimate conversion to the Anglican Church and his being a famous and influential proselytizer of his faith. It was a journey that took him from a difficult childhood and strained relationship with his father, through two influential years with a masterly tutor, and on to Oxford University, where at the age of 25 he became a Fellow and distinguished Don.

To the extent that the journey, narrated in Lewis’ own words, is a challenging conversion story, everyone can relate to it. However, for me the film had a special significance. I too undertook a somewhat similar, but by no means as significant, journey while attending Oxford.

Of course, as the son of a mailman, the very fact that I was able to go to Oxford was a combination of luck and the generosity of a government that was determined to make it possible for a working-class kid to attend university with no financial constraints. The “luck” part was that I attended a state school which, at the time, seemed to me to be in no way outstanding. However, that no fewer than six of us out of a graduating class of 17 managed to qualify for enrolment at Oxford seems in retrospect to be remarkable. So, clad in my “off the peg” suit, announcing with every word my broad working-class Dorset accent, I duly arrived at Oxford, which had, until then, largely been an enclave of privileged aristocrats and the wealthy.

It is remarkable that at no time, either by faculty or fellow students, was I ever made to feel inferior or the victim of the deeply entrenched English class system. However, social acceptance did not provide a free ticket to a demanding academic life. I was, unlike Lewis, certainly no genius and needed all the help I could get with my attempts to come to terms with a rigorous exploration of English literature.

And here is where the film took on further significance – no, dear reader, I have not forgotten the film!

At the time I went up to Oxford, Lewis had just finished his outstanding career as a lecturer. But his written works were still available and, for me, decidedly essential. Thanks to a host of eminent scholars, as well as my patient tutors, I was able to make up for my own many academic shortcomings by having recourse to the works of such luminaries as Whitlock on Anglo-Saxon literature, Gardner on Wyatt, Murray on Swift, Bateson on Wordsworth, and, of course, Bradley on Shakespeare.

More relevant to the film is that it spends considerable time showing the friendship between J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Again, I was reminded of my own journey, in that for one year Christopher Tolkien, son of J.R.R., was my tutor in Anglo-Saxon; that it proved to be less than memorable for me is doubtless because of my own inadequacy. It was the father to whom I feel greatly indebted. Tolkien’s work, particularly his superb edition of Sir Gawain, proved to be of enormous value.

It is noteworthy that the film makes no mention of The Inklings – the small group whose discussion contributed so much to the future output of Tolkien and Lewis; but at the time, few suspected what would come of their weekly meetings at the Eagle and Child pub. So it is that Tolkien’s later fame as a fantasy writer is not even hinted at in the film, though his doughty intellect was crucial to Lewis’s faith development.

Many today will associate Lewis with his Christian writings and his dedication to writing fiction from a Christian perspective, not only the Narnia Chronicles but also his science fiction trilogy, beginning with Out of the Silent Planet. (Can you imagine: a sci-film imbued with Christianity? Now there’s a potential sci-fi film with a difference!)

For me, however, it is Lewis’ scholarly writing for which I will be forever grateful, notably his masterly English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama and his marvellous A Preface to Paradise Lost. They proved invaluable to me; I doubt that I would have graduated without them! 

And as the film further shows, life at Oxford consisted not only of hours spent in the beautiful Bodleian Library and in small student rooms, but endless hours drinking tea or coffee and pondering the great imponderables – especially religion. I certainly can’t pretend that my discussions rose to the dazzling intellectual heights illustrated so impressively in the film, but in one way Lewis’ journey and my own ran similar courses in that the upshot of it was that somehow I managed to stumble my way from avowed agnosticism bordering on atheism to entering the Catholic Church.

All that was, of course, over 60 years ago, but the film further reminded me that I was enormously helped on my way by Lewis’ writing, particularly his Mere Christianity. Later as a practising Catholic, I found further strengthening in my newfound faith in others of his spiritual works as well as the magnificent writings of Chesterton, particularly Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man, as well as his amazing and stimulating biographies of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thomas Aquinas.

As the film reveals, Chesterton was of especially great importance to Lewis. So it was that this film about C.S. Lewis over and over became a welcome reminder of a path that I trod long ago. It was indeed for me a very personal experience.

At the one evening showing I attended, the film was preceded by a short documentary, presumably to round out a show that lasts only a little over one hour. The documentary shows how the film was made and the process of adapting it from the one-man stage show that inspired it. When it is given wider release, I do hope that this documentary, which is something of a “cinema spoiler” will be included as a coda, rather than an introduction.

The film does an effective job of recreating the Oxford of the 1930s, showing its charm and exclusivity. This is not possible in the play version, which is understandably restricted to a one-room set indicative of a don’s study. Thus the film has the advantage that it can bring to more accessible life the many characters with whom Lewis interacted, giving it a greater sense of dramatic immediacy. It’s one of the few times when a film has actually improved on the stage version of a work.

The result is intellectually challenging, often laugh-out-loud witty, and always involving. At the centre of it all is Max McLean’s brilliant performance as Lewis. Thanks to his work, rounded out by an impressive supporting cast, and under Norman Stone’s creative direction, the play becomes a most timely and entertaining film.

At a time of growing religious doubt, when cinema seems to be largely concerned with nonsensical and derivative science fiction and horror films, a film about a famous intellectual’s journey from religious doubt to certainty should indeed be welcome by anyone interested in ideas and religion. Like me, viewers will take away from it their own personal reaction, but this is a “must see” for believers and non-believers alike!

At the time of writing, one day after its one-evening showing, Cineplex reported that the film had taken in $1.2 million. This means that it will be made far more widely available. In the meantime, for anyone anxious to see the play, not the film adaptation, it is available, free of charge, on Redeem TV – a truly worthy streaming service which offers a rich assortment of Christian viewing. However, I need to point out that it is possible that this particular show will be withdrawn from the platform as the commercial version becomes available.