Fast times with ‘C.S. Lewis’

Just as the big-screen adaptation of the “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” is busting out all over for the holidays, the Hallmark Channel premieres a mini-docudrama tonight on its author, “C.S. Lewis: Beyond Narnia.”

Speedy even by the standards of the form, it’s a breakneck tour through the main points of his life and thinking, a procession of vignettes hurried along by a clutch of “C.S. Lewis scholars” with the visible enthusiasm of dogs let off the leash in their favorite park. Although useful as a primer and more than usually eloquent -- it’s been largely fashioned from Lewis’ own words -- it also fails pretty thoroughly as drama, despite excellent work from Anton Rodgers as the man himself.

Written and directed by Norman Stone, who many years ago helmed the Lewis-themed BBC television play “Shadowlands” (later a stage play and a film), it’s no dispassionate overview. One might call it a religious picture, even -- it believes in miracles, as did the author, a lapsed Christian who lapsed back out of atheism to become one of the faith’s best-known apologists. (“Beyond Narnia” comes from Faith & Values Media, a production company that “uses television, and other media to promote the vitality of religious experience in everyday life and to give expression to religious diversity.” )

And yet, despite its evident ardency, the film does not do a good job of making you feel the force of Lewis’ conversion, or what he lost or gained from it. Nor does it find the heart of the late-life marriage to American poet Joy Gresham -- played here with aggressive midcentury anomie by Diane Venora (Chan Parker in “Bird”) -- whose relationship with Lewis was the subject of “Shadowlands.” Much is asserted, but little is felt.

Many scenes are played in mime beneath narration, or so briefly that they never seem like more than play-acting. Indeed, so much has to be transmitted in a glance or gesture or single line of dialogue that the actors have almost no choice but to overact, with the result that much of what should be moving is merely sentimental. Remarkably unconvincing are the scenes regarding the children that Lewis and his housemate brother Warren boarded during the London blitz, and whose knockabout presence was reflected in, if not the inspiration for -- as the film seems to say -- Lewis’ seven-book Christian fairy tale “The Chronicles of Narnia.” (The lion is Jesus, kids.) And as Warren Lewis, Peter Banks has little to do but huff in the background or shrug ruefully.

On the plus side, much of the film was shot where it really happened, including Lewis’ recently restored Oxford home and the Eagle and Child Pub, frequent host to the literary discussion group the Inklings, which also included friend J.R.R. Tolkien.

And there is Rodgers, who does a fine job of speaking for Lewis. When he is left alone to address the viewer in Lewis’ words, he seems quite the genuine article. The producers might have profitably sent everyone else home and made this a one-man show.

*

Where: Hallmark Channel

When: 9 tonight

Ratings: TV-G (suitable for all ages)

Anton Rodgers...C.S. Lewis

Diane Venora...Joy Gresham

John Franklyn-Robbins...The Great Knock

Peter Banks...Warren Lewis

Executive producers Edward J. Murray, William Spencer Reilly, Jeffrey C. Weber. Director Norman Stone. Writer Norman Stone.