Iris
Old-fashioned movie that's ahead of its time
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.John Bayley arguably turned his wife, Iris Murdoch, into a theme park when he wrote about their relationship – and the Alzheimer's that killed her – in the memoirs Iris And Her Friends and Elegy for Iris. And for those who feel that way, Richard Eyre's new film will rip open the wound.
Promiscuity, Peter Pan hair-cuts, ga-ga-isms, terror – all are offered up for our entertainment. None of it makes you want to go and read Murdoch, but sales of Bayley's books will probably rocket. Which is not to say this is a wicked film, just a canny one. The scenes involving the young Iris (Kate Winslet) play like Inspector Morse without the dead bodies. Splendid-looking Oxford undergraduate whirls around with cads (male and female), torturing young professor Bayley (Hugh Bonneville) who can't hope to keep up. You never get under this girl's glowing skin, but her being a free spirit an' all, you get to see a lot of it.
Switching back to the present, Bayley (Jim Broadbent) and Iris (Judi Dench) are invariably held up as the ideal couple. After a desperate day, they mouth "I love you" to each other. Well, it worked in Titanic. The descent of their house into chaos is also charted with horrified glee. Aimed at those with immaculate homes, the images are clearly meant to make us gasp.
Luckily for Eyre, he has Dench and Broadbent on his side – and they make up for everything. Dench, with her currant bun face, and Broadbent, with his jelly eyes, use their bodies to render the prosaic beautiful and the vicious natural. We watch stony, tight-mouthed Iris melt with pleasure under a hot shower and find ourselves beaming in the dark. We watch her nuzzling against the harassed Bayley like a hungry cat – he looks as if he'd like to kick her away; we want to shove her aside, too.
The actors are so in tune with each other that you never take sides. Nor are you conscious of how good they are; you're too absorbed in the moment to care.
All the clumsy strands in the film about artistic rivalry, identity and language make sense when seeing these two interact. This is the sort of movie that gets called old fashioned, but at its best Iris is as much ahead of, as behind, the times. We all hate change and imperfection, hence plastic surgery, hence cloning. Iris reminds us that when bodies and minds disintegrate they need to be cherished more, not less.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments