SNMR 4.26: "Iris"

Tonight's SNMR feature is "Iris" (2001, R, 91 minutes), starring Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville. The film was directed by Richard Eyre. Jim Broadbent won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2002 while Judi Dench and Kate Wnslet were nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively.

PLOT SUMMARY: (from the DVD's dust case) Here's the powerful true story based on John Bayley's novels that earned Jim Broadbent an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Academy Award Nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Judi Dench (Shakespeare in Love) and Kate Winslet (Titanic) bring to the screen one of the most extraordinary women of the 20^thcentury, celebrated English author Iris Murdoch. As told by her unlikely soul mate, husband John Bayley, Iris first became known as a brilliant young scholar at Oxford whose boundless spirit dazzled those around her. Then, during a remarkable career as a novelist and philosopher, she continued to prove herself a woman ahead of her time. Even later in life, as age and illness robbed Iris of her remarkable gifts, nothing could diminish her immense influence or weaken the bond with her devoted husband.


WHAT I THINK: The casting people did a really good job here in choosing actors to play the young and old Iris and John and the makeup people did a really great job in helping Judi Dench and Kate Winslet as well as Jim Broadbent and Hugh Bonneville look remarkably similar, so that the transitions back and forth between young and old have a seamless quality about them.

In general, stories about people suffering from Alzheimer's Disease are depressing and this movie is no exception. The story is emotional and moving, but not really my kind of film. I really don't think that Broadbent, Dench or Winslet gave particularly Oscar worthy performances, but I guess that's why (among many reasons) I don't get a real vote for the Oscar nominated performances. Still, it's a good film.

***1/4 out of *****