Iris is a love story about Iris Murdoch and her husband of 40 years, Professor John Bayley. The movie actually doesn't tell you much about Murdoch, who was a brilliant novelist, but it's an interesting study of love, semi-eccentric intellectuals and the passage of time.
Iris Murdoch died in 1999 of Alzheimer's Disease. Iris is split between scenes of her youth and scenes of her decline, with Kate Winslet playing the young Iris and Judi Dench playing the mature Iris.
Jim Broadbent is John Bayley; Hugh Bonneville is done up like Broadbent's twin to play the young John Bayley. This sort of young character/older character thing rarely works, except it does here because all four actors are so good.
When Iris and John meet in the early '50s, it is about a year before the publication of her first novel. Scenes set in the past are loaded with period detail and talk about sexuality and the language and the language of sexuality, and so forth. Murdoch's sexual exploits with both men and women are hinted at; there's a lot of hinting-at in the film, really, and plenty of beautiful, metaphor-laden shots of people swimming together underwater.
According to Iris, the writer's mental decline was rather swift. One day Murdoch cannot remember where she was in a sentence, the next day, she is living in a world of her own. As the failing Iris, Dench is terrifyingly good. Iris certainly moved this viewer to tears, but whether they were tears for what Murdoch endured or tears for Bayley's loss when she dies or tears of absolute terror of ever having to face Alzheimer's we could not say.
Both Dame Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent have been nominated for Academy Awards for their work in Iris. How such an intelligent film found its way into the morass of bad taste we call the Oscars remains a mystery, but theirs are indeed performances worth honouring.
Our money says Iris is that rare entry on the big screen -- a movie for grownups. It's not the greatest movie ever made, but it is a pleasure to look at.
Even better, the film might inspire somebody somewhere to read one of Murdoch's books, The Italian Girl, for example, or A Severed Head. It could happen.
(This film is rated AA)
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