Iris is the delicately told story about British author and lecturer Iris Murdoch. It is a film with some classy, powerful, and sensitive acting. Basically a profile of parts of a famous British author's life, it is a quiet and moving drama.
The movie opens with the older, 50 or 60something Iris Murdoch (Judi Dench), a University lecturer and respected novelist who is in love with words and writing. This film then flashes us back and forth between the older Iris and a younger, snappier Iris (Kate Winslett). The movie spends the first 30 minutes getting us familiar with Iris and her husband John Bayley (Jim Broadbent) in their older age and when they first met, some 50 years earlier in the 1940s. We see their relationship develop on one end, and then as she becomes ill in old age, we see it disintegrate into the darkness of mind that is clearly Alzheimer's Disease.
The acting in this Academy Award nominated film is well worth the accolades. Judi Dench is perfectly realistic as the ailing Iris. She is able to play the early stages of the illness to the later throes with grace and class. Her performance is arguably one of the best of 2001. Jim Broadbent (Moulin Rouge, Bridget Jones' Diary) outdoes himself again as Murdoch's loving husband who goes through the painful journey with Iris. He plays his role with passion and sincerity that was almost unparalleled in 2001. Kate Winslett is brilliant as the younger Iris and with her quick wit and sexual promiscuity.
Iris is a movie that is both sweet and painful, as we see examples of love's great courage and the slow loss of a great mind. It is a sad movie that contains some excellent performances. The movie is mercifully short at 90 minutes, it does not drag or linger. This movie is not for everyone, I only recommend it for those who have a taste for literature or want to see some very well deserved Oscar nominated acting from Dench, Broadbent, and Winslett. It will be a bore for pretty much anyone else.
Back to:
© 2000 webmaster@currentlyplaying.com