Iris - Un amore vero

This episodic story of Iris Murdoch, best selling novelist, and her husband John Bayley, is not for the faint-hearted. There are no illusions here, and those that seem to exist are shattered by grim reality.

The film pulls no punches, showing Iris as a self-absorbed, stream-of-consciousness woman who becomes ill with Alzheimer's disease. Her husband, in sickness and in health, seems to always be a step behind her. However, he is enthralled with her - totally devoted and ultimately alone.

Yet, this portrait is beautiful and episodic, filled with symbolism, wonderful flashbacks, and the threads of a relationship built and undone. The four leads are just wonderful, with Jim Broadbent deservedly receiving an Oscar for his performance. Superb cinematography, editing, and direction support the actors and the great script.

Highly recommended. I give it 9 out of 10.

This film succeeds where the overrated "A Beautiful Mind" fell short. It puts its subject's life into perspective and gives a sense of her worldview and, needs, and desires--as opposed to just focusing on the illness. I think it is also more effective in its use of different actors to portray the main characters at different ages, rather than using distracting age makeup, like in ABM. I came away from this with a profound admiration for Iris Murdock, whereas I felt like I hardly got to know John Nash at all.

But enough with the comparisons. This film stands well on its own as a tribute to the companionship shared by Iris and her husband John Bayley throughout their long, complex, relationship. Broadbent deserved that Academy Award, although I would say he plays more of a lead character than supporting. Seeing Iris through Bayley's loving eyes is what makes the film an enriching experience. He is the one who must adapt to her unconventional lifestyle, and their journey together is a rewarding one.

One person who commented stated that this was "another disease movie." Funny how you never hear a complaints about "another gangster movie" or "another romantic comedy" or "another suspense thriller." SO WHAT? First of all, it is not a disease movie, it is at its heart a romance, and a "meaning of life" film, much moreso than a film about Alzheimer's disease. Secondly, the disease is the device used to illustrate their level of understanding and commitment to each other. And finally, I cannot imagine telling Murdock's story WITHOUT giving the disease its proper weight in the course of the film.

The scenes when the characters are younger are blended seamlessly with the latter day scenes. Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville (uncannily resembling a young Broadbent) are very true to their older counterparts' personalities, and add yet another dimension to film. All in all, this is a production of which director Richard Eyre and cast (and Bayley, who wrote the book on which the film is based) should be extremely proud. It should have been seen by more people in 2001. Grade: A

This film, inspired by John Bayley's memoir in tribute of his late wife, the novelist Iris Murdoch, gives us some insight into the final years of Murdoch as she struggled with the effects of Alzheimer's Disease, and shows us how her personality developed from the quirky, intelligent student of her young days into the self-assured, measured writer at her peak.

Iris is played when young by Kate Winslet, whose portrayal veers from playful to irritating. As she grows older she morphs into the wonderful Judi Dench, giving a quite exceptional performance as the mature Murdoch. Playing John Bayley are two actors who uncannily resemble each other - Hugh Bonneville and Jim Broadbent. Broadbent was to win awards for his performance, and rightly so, although Bonneville was no less touching.

In a well-balanced supporting cast we have Penelope Wilton, Sam and Timothy West, Eleanor Bron, and Juliet Aubrey, giving assured performances.

Is 'Iris' truly a movie about a writer, and the business of writing and creativity? Well, no, as her writing is not central to the feel of the piece (although it does touch on her gift for words, and the tragic loss of the ability to process and work with them). It is something of a downbeat film, which will leave the more sensitive amongst you with damp eyes, but essentially it is an exceptional piece of work about the destructive power of dementia and Alzheimer's.

This movie has an all-star cast -- Judi Dench as Iris Murdoch, Jim Broadbent as her husband, John Bayley, Kate Winslet as the young Iris Murdoch, and Hugh Bonneville as the young John Bayley. The actors have physical appearances that makes it easy to believe we are seeing the same characters young and old. The editing is interesting, often cutting back and forth between the young and old characters within a scene.

I am not familiar with any of her works, but I have learned that Iris Murdoch was a very fine and prolific writer. She loved the language, and had a very unconventional outlook on life. This film seems to be more about her onset of Alzheimer's and her husband's trying to deal with it, rather than a story about Iris and how she came to be who she was. The story they chose not to explore I believe would have made a more interesting movie. For me Kate Winslet was the real star of the film, playing the younger Iris, and I came away wishing the film had spent much more time on her story. While the later Alzheimer years are important and interesting, too much of the film dwelled on these latter years.

Dench and Broadbent do a fantastic job charting the devolution of Iris' faculties as she struggles with Alzheimer's; the problem with this film is during the flashback scenes. Winslet is average, not great in her portrayal, but that's partially because the script doesn't present Iris Murdoch in her early days as a very sympathetic character. Instead of coming off as a free spirit she's far more of a sexually confused egotistical dilantette who uses everyone around her. Scenes where Iris is supposedly revealing her shady past and her motivations fall completely flat...there's not enough of a sense of vulnerability or that she really NEEDS her husband. Ultimately that takes away from the Dench-Broadbent storyline. I felt badly for Broadbent's character as he clearly was in way over his head trying to take care of Iris, but I was puzzled as to why he stayed with her in the first place as she treated him so awfully when they were young.

The flashbacks also aren't handled quite right, the interaction between the "present" and past scenes is too jarring. I suspect that it was a conscious choice to do it that way in an attempt to describe the ravages of Alzheimer's, but the film really suffers as a story because of it. This film would have been better served as a straight linear narrative without the constant flashbacks, focusing on either the young or old stage of Iris' life.