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Review by Susan Granger
3½ stars out of 4
Perhaps love can conquer everything - but not Alzheimer's. Based on
John Bayley's two memoirs about his wife, British novelist/philosopher Iris
Murdoch, this is the heart-wrenching story of a loving couple's valiant battle
with that degenerative disease. What elevates the tragic concept are four
amazing performances: Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville as the young pair and
Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent as their aging counterparts. Spanning 43 years, the
screenplay by director Richard Eyre and Charles Wood intercuts flashbacks of the
courtship of a high-spirited, lusty, bohemian novelist by a staid, stammering
University lecturer with their later married life as a renowned author and
literary critic in an unkempt Oxfordshire manor house. Problem is: while we
witness their amicable interaction, we know little about them as individuals -
except her credo: "Only one freedom is worthwhile, that of the mind." Murdoch's
manipulative promiscuity is mentioned, but there's no hint of her passion for
Plato's philosophy nor her intolerance of children. And Bayley's merely a
devoted, socially inept cipher. It's frustrating to have the characters remain
so remote. But that's in the writing, not the performances. Judi Dench is
phenomenal, particularly when she realizes that something is dreadfully wrong as
she tries to spell the word "puzzled" - and it's not just forgetfulness. Jim
Broadbent matches her every step of the way on her debilitating descent into
confusion and darkness. As their energetically youthful peers, Kate Winslet and
Hugh Bonneville mesh seamlessly. The physical resemblances are uncanny - as is
Martin Walsh's astonishing editing. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10,
"Iris" is an intelligent, insightful, unconventional 9. It's a touching,
thought-provoking personal drama for sophisticated audiences.
Copyright © 2001 Susan Granger
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out of 4
