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Judi Dench's portrayal of a great mind succumbing to the ravages of
Alzheimer's is unbearably moving, but it's let down a little by a
lack of dramatic momentum and Richard Eyre's unambitious direction.
Bouncing back and forth between Murdoch's early days at Oxford and
her deterioration four decades later, "Iris" tells of its
heroine's enduring love for John Bailey, a fellow academic who wrote
the memoirs upon which the script was based.
Played
by Kate Winslet, the younger Iris is a vivacious intellectual with
penchants for nude swimming and casual sex. What she sees in the
bookish, stammering Bailey (Bonneville) is a mystery, but that doesn't
stop her taking him into her bed, and into her heart.
The
situation is reversed in the present day, with the now-elderly Bailey
(Broadbent) forced to become a virtual parent to his addled wife.
Unfortunately, because we are asked to take Murdoch's genius on
trust, the impact of her tragedy is reduced. Indeed, the ping-pong
structure of the narrative unwittingly implies her condition might
even be some karmic retribution for her adolescent promiscuity.
Dench
and Winslet inhabit the role of Iris with such intensity it's hard
to take your eyes off them. But it would be an injustice not to
recognise the contributions of Broadbent and Bonneville. In addition
to their astonishing physical resemblance, they ensure the bumbling
Bailey is no mere caricature of selfless devotion.
"Iris"
opens in UK cinemas on Friday 18th January 2002.
Reviewed
by
Neil Smith , BBC Films
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