In the following, an overview explaining the main points of the film are given.

When we meet him, C. S. Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) is giving rather smug lectures about the blessed necessity for suffering in our life: "Pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf world," he happily informs his listeners.

But what does Lewis Oxford don, literary critic, fairy-tale writer, Christian apologist actually know about the ordinary hurts of ordinary life? Or, for that matter, about life as most people know it? His beloved mother died when he was a child, and for decades he has lived in withdrawn bachelorhood. Snuggled up in a charming book-lined cottage with his brother Warnie (the excellent Edward Hardwicke), he is sage but distant with his students, witty but somewhat abstract with his colleagues at the high table.

The man needs shaking up. And Joy Gresham (Debra Winger) is just...