Iris
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Movie Reviews of Iris
Movie Review: A Love Story, Young and Old, Sweet and Bitter, in Oxford
Summary: 4 Stars
On Feburary 28, 1999, one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century died. It is Iris Murdoch, the Iris of this tender, but at times very bitter film. But don't be put off by her name or profile; you don't even have to tell Oxford from Cambridge because "Iris" is a story of love. And the acting is really great.Iris Murdoch met her future husband John Bayley at Oxford. Vivacious, free-spirited Iris was teaching philosophy while Bayley was a teacher of English literature. Iris is gradually attracted to shy and sincere Bayley, and one day confesses that she is writing a novel, showing him a manuscript. They get married in 1956, to live together happily for long years to come.
But around the year 1997, they find something is not quite right. Iris starts to forget the spelling of words, or the name of the prime minister. And they find that she suffers from Alzheimer's disease. Bayley continues to support her, but it is obvious that the time is near when they cannot live together as they did any more.
The two parts of the real-life events are depicted one after the other; the young John Bayley is played by Hugh Bonneville while the older Bayley by Jim Broadbent. The young Iris Murdoch is by Kate Winslet, and the older, by Judi Dench. Kudos to those actors; all of them are so convincing as the characters that you get uncanny feeling that Hugh Boneville has really grown up to be Jim Broadbent, who had to play the person in fact about 20 years older than himself. And about these female players, we don't need any superflous praise; Judi Dench is great, so is Kate Winslet. That's it.
However, there is one minor setback. The double-plot development the film employs is surely heavy-handed and damages the whole work, undermining the potential of the story based on the truth. Too frequent flash-backing/flash-forwarding is just annoying, and makes the film like a long train of vignettes. The vignettes themselves are well-crafted, but joined together, they somehow alienate us, the viewers, who want to get inside of these characters. And by the use of the double plot, the minor characters lost their functions in the film; you see one character "Maurice" played by off-screen father and son Timothy West and Samuel West, but that does not work at all, or we simply forget about this person who is buried among the maze of the script.
The camera is beautiful, the music is good, but the director Richard Eyre betrays that though he is good at inducing the actors to play their best, he is a director for stage, not for film. (And he is famous as stage director.) Like "American Beauty" (of which director, as you know, comes from stage origin), the film is a blessed moment for actors, but not necessarily for moviegoers especialy when they, like me, prefer the dynamic power of story or well-chosen dialogues. I do not say "Iris" is bad; just not for all taste.
All in all, "Iris" is a fantastic experience to get to know one of the most charming couple among the literary world. After all, the film may change the stereotyped profiles of Iris Murdoch such as I quoted before: like, "most acclaimed novelist and philosopher' etc. And I believe the real Iris is as much an enchanting person as this film shows, or even more.
Movie Review: Powerful, convincing performances
Summary: 4 Stars
There is no question about it: the extraordinarily convincing performances by the four principal actors in this film are the reason the film succeeds. Not just their acting, but the way the two pairs of younger/older performers mesh with one another. In particular, Jim Broadbent and Hugh Bonneville are amazingly believable as the same character. Bonneville (whom I primarily knew as "Bernie" the inept stock broker in NOTTING HILL) is the least well known of the quartet, but more than holds his own as the young John Bayley. Jim Broadbent, who is one of the seven acting marvels of the modern world (doubt me? Watch him back-to-back in this film, MOULIN ROUGE, TOPSY-TURVY, THE SECRET AGENT, and NICHOLAS NICKLEBY--it doesn't seem possible that the same actor is in each film), won a well-deserved Oscar as the mature Bayley (even though he was around 20 years too young for the role, being only around 53 at the time of filming). Kate Winslet manages to communicate the charisma that so many felt in the young Iris Murdoch, while Judi Dench is extraordinary in registering the onset of the loss of self that Iris Murdoch felt as the Alzheimer's gained more and more control of her.
I do have one complaint, one felt by the person I saw this with. It seems to end too abruptly. All films have, or ought to have, a rhythm. Any experienced film viewer can usually sense how much is left in a film. At the point where IRIS suddenly ended, however, I would have guessed that there was at lest 15 minutes left. At it was, it seemed to end two or three scenes too quickly.
A personal note. I actually knew a person fairly well who makes a very, very oblique appearance in the film. The young John Bayley accidentally discovers Iris having sex with a man she later describes as a prominent Italian professor of ancient history who lives in London with his wife (considered by many to be one of the very greatest ancient historians of the past century). I won't reveal names (for that, read Peter Conradi's excellent biography, where the professor's identity will be made fairly obvious). No longer living, he used to live part of each year on the campus where I attended grad school, at the faculty club where I was graveyard shift desk clerk. Each evening he would come in from the library and we would talk about one subject or another. We actually discussed Iris Murdoch one night, though I didn't know, and he didn't reveal, that he knew her. I was reading BRUNO'S DREAM, and I complained that she didn't seem to understand male psychology. Knowing what I know now, I marvel at that conversation and wish it had taken a more respectful form.
Movie Review: Love Can Conquer All- Almost
Summary: 4 Stars
"The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries." Iris Murdock
I love the writing of Iris Murdock and her quotes even more so. The film about her life and her slip into oblivion is a marvelous feat. How could a book written by her husband, John Bayle be so provocative and fascinating? It is the four actors who play Iris and John in their 43 year marriage that makes this film a true treasure. Iris was born of Irish parents and moved to London as a small child. She was an intelligent, out spoken young woman and took up Literature at Oxford. It was during this time that she met John. Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville play the young couple. A more two unlikely pair. Iris outgoing, outspoken and with many friends. John introverted, someone who stuttered with few friends. But fall in love they did- both highly intelligent- John was a literature professor and Iris wrote books- wonderful books that gained her fame and she became a Dame of the Empire. They settled into their lives with their writings and their friends.
As Iris approached the age of 55 she noted forgetfulness, unable to remember a word here and there. At this age, Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent played their aging counterparts. Iris was examined and in the film no diagnosis was spoken, but we know it is Alzheimer. Judi Dench plays an amazing Iris during this period. Her every glance and facial expression give us the feel of one who is slipping away. It is Jim Broadbent as John who is amazing. As a caretaker he exhibits the grace of one who loves, but also the lethargy and extreme fatigue of caring for someone who is active but must be watched at all times. He is in a time and place of his own, but he insists upon caring for Iris by himself. As time goes on we see him slip into forgetfulness himself, until he realizes he must do something.
An amazing film, difficult to view at times if you have someone who is slipping away. But for all of us who love someone and for those of us who care, we view this film as a devoted husband giving his loved wife the tribute she deserves.
Recommended. prisrob 03-22-09
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Movie Review: The destruction of a gifted mind by Alzheimer's disease
Summary: 4 Stars
"Iris" was a most disturbing film for me to watch, although I know exactly why it affected me so. Ever since I learned that H. L. Mencken spent the final years of his life incapacitated by a stroke that made it impossible for him to read and write (or to remember nouns), the idea of losing my mental faculties has been pretty much the worst of all possible fates for me. Similar ground is covered in "Iris," as the novelist Iris Murdoch has her mind, her marriage, and her life destroyed by Alzheimer's disease. Of course the film makes me uncomfortable; it should make anybody uncomfortable to watch a human being's life come undone like this.The screenplay by Richard Eyre and Charles Wood, based on the books "Iris: A Memory" and "Elegy for Iris" by her husband John Bayley, attempts to convey cinematically what has been lost. Consequently we cut back and forth between the present, as John (Jim Broadbent) struggles to take care of his beloved Iris (Judi Dench), and disjointed scenes from the past, as young John (Hugh Bonneville) and Iris (Kate Winslet) meet and fall in love. Sometimes they are brief glimpses, other times extended scenes, combining to provide a disjointed pictures of these two lives.
I was surprised that I do not especially remember Iris Murdoch as a novelist; I know that I have never read any of her books. So my sense of what a great mind was lost is based entirely on what we see of Iris at the top of her game in the film. Clearly "Iris" is a film that presents these lives in fragments and pieces. We never fully understand why Iris decides to marry Jim; it must have been a superb meeting of the minds, but that is not the sense we get from the film where Jim is pretty much an amiable fuddy duddy. "Iris" is about the end and the beginning of a relationship, with a giant gap in the middle. Still, this film is about the growing gaps that appeared in the lives of this couple, so it is hard to say such an approach is unjustified. Again, if "Iris" is an unsettling film, then we have to remember that it should be.
The acting by the four principles is first rate, although I want to make special mention of Hugh Bonneville because he was the only one of the quartet not to receive an Oscar nomination. Bonneville does as fine of a creating a younger Broadbent as Kate Winslet does a younger Judi Dench, but apparently that is a thankless job.
Movie Review: Heartwrenching. A touching romance.
Summary: 4 Stars
Heartwrenching. Story summary:
Iris Murdoch (Judi Dench - old; and Kate Winslet - young) is a renowned philosopher and author. The movie intermixes when she first met her husband, John Baylor (Jim Broadbent - old; and Hugh Bonneville - young) and her decline into Alzheimer's. I don't think it would be accurate to call Iris free-spirited, though in a sense that may actually describe her. She seems to be more along the lines of explorative. The movie doesn't tell us a lot about Iris's life before she met John nor much about her life in between meeting John and when she succumbs to Alzheimer's. Perhaps because of her fame we should already know about her (I am not familiar with her work). What we are able to pick up is that John was desperately in love with her when they first met and she eventually came to realize that she needed him. When the Alzheimer's worsens, though John has always loved her, it becomes apparent that they have both become very dependent upon the other.
My comments:
I loved the movie. The acting was superb. Jim Broadbent deserved the Oscar for his performance; the movie is worth seeing just for his portrayal. All of the others were very good as well. I think I am still surprised how comfortable Kate Winslet seems with her body (there is full body nudity in the movie, though I wouldn't consider it pornographic). What really makes this movie wonderful, besides the acting, is the love that you feel between Iris and John (both the old and young). You feel the loss. My wife and I are a young couple and thinking about growing old and having to deal with debilitating diseases really makes the devastation of Alzheimer's seem more real.
The jumps between the old and young versions of Iris and John made me hesitant at the beginning of the movie that it was going to be hard to follow. It really wasn't. Though the story wasn't continuous, I don't think it was intended to be. I also have to comment on their house. I know, some people like living like that, but wow. Anyway...
Overall, though the movie is sad and, as I described it above, heartwrenching, I would highly recommend it. Why four instead of five? I'm not sure that they really could have improved the story other than to give us a bit more information on Iris Murdoch, but I just didn't think it was a five star film.