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Iris
*1/2
Cinema Releases - February 15, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. 90
minutes. Directed by Richard Eyre. Written by Richard Eyre, Charles Wood;
from the books "Iris: A Memoir" and "Elegy for Iris" by John Bayley. Starring
Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, Kate Winslet, Hugh Bonneville, Penelope
Wilton.
Iris Murdoch, whose most famous work was the Booker
Prize-winning "The Sea, The Sea", was one of Britain's best-loved writers,
with twenty-six novels, four philosophy books and several stage plays to
her name. She died in 1999 of Alzheimer's disease -- a fact of great distress
to her loved ones, who reacted with disbelief that a woman once so in control
of stories, themes and ideas wound up finishing life without the ability
to grasp much more than her surroundings. "In the end," said her husband,
John Bayley, "She was like a very nice three year-old."
Bayley wrote two books about his wife, and now
we have Richard Eyre's "Iris", a depressingly shallow movie
that cuts between the middle and the end of Murdoch's life in an attempt
to tug on the heartstrings by comparing the passion of her prime to the pathos
of her demise. The movie's entire structure is a device to highlight this
obvious contrast, which is simply not substantial enough to hold our attention
for ninety minutes.
The screenplay features plenty of dialogue in
which Iris mentions morality, sexuality, love, passion, and both the power
and limitations of language, but none of this dialogue is convincing. Even
though there are two wonderful actresses playing Iris -- Judi Dench as the
older woman, Kate Winslet as the young version -- their delivery is staid
and restrained, and their reeling off of thoughts comes across as pretentious,
distant, theoretical wittering. Words are spoken, but nobody really talks.
Eyre's filmmaking is so flat and formal that even when his leading ladies
are recreating real-life speeches, the lines sound like meaningless, highfalutin
drivel, as if pages from one of Murdoch's philosophy books were being read
at random without thought for tone.
Recall television interviews of the real Iris
Murdoch, and you will remember a woman with bulging eyes, hungry demeanour
and a manner of intonation that communicated the innermost thoughts of an
artist with perfect clarity. Eyre fails to recreate this; he seems to think
that giving Winslet a few chunks of Iris Murdoch's words and then cutting
to Dench looking feeble is just about fiery enough. The real Iris Murdoch
unleashed her speech with freedom, was fascinated by concepts of morality,
mused about complex senses of romance, got deeply involved in liberal politics
and did relief work for the United Nations. You'd never guess any of that
from this movie, which passes judgement on a life without viewing many of
its passages and attempts to discuss passion through a style of mirthless
rigidity.
The sections of the film involving the elder Iris
do not follow the slow, sad progression of Alzheimer's that I see in my
grandmother, but rather hint at slipping memory for a few moments and follow
with an endless parade of scenes in which Dench wanders round like a child,
looking confused and blank. The most interesting character in the picture
ends up being Bayley, because Hugh Bonneville and Jim Broadbent have been
allowed to play the character with eccentricity, and create a living, breathing
personality. The nicest line in "Iris" takes place in the opening moments,
when Broadbent tells Dench, "Thanks for reminding me I had two lectures today;
I didn't remember them, but I remembered to apologise for the one I forgot."
It's a good piece of dialogue because it shows someone being humorous and
human, instead of a simplified object.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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