Iris

A worthy and admirable, if less than high-octane biopic of esteemed author Iris Murdoch, Iris is based on her husband’s account of their relationship and her eventual struggle with the debilitating effects of Alzheimer’s disease. It’s not exactly The Fast And The Furious in terms of pure effect on the blood pressure, and it may appeal more to audiences as one ascends the age scale, but there’s no denying that it’s a heartfelt and even quite moving exercise.

Cutting between past and present, the film charts the initial meeting between a young Murdoch (Winslet), then a student, and Professor John Bayley (Bonneville) at Oxford University in the 1950s. While he is unassuming, and a textbook case study in repressed English reserve, she is bohemian and free-spirited (and to underline the point, Kate Winslet spends a fair bit of time cavorting around naked). Though he finds her behaviour somewhat shocking, he is taken with her wit and charm, and soon they bond over her freshman efforts as a novelist. Years later, during the 1990s, John (Broadbent) and Iris (Dench) are writing and lecturing at Oxford, now a married couple (Dame Judi Dench does not cavort around naked). Iris is finishing her latest novel but seems disjointed and panicky: it soon becomes apparent that she has Alzheimer’s. From here, John can only nurse her as her mind becomes increasingly ravaged by the disease.

One hardly needs reminding that we’re fast approaching Oscar season, at which time ‘prestige’ projects and acting showcases such as this tend to flood into the cinemas. Iris is not the most thrilling or viscerally exciting film ever made, and is unlikely to trouble Lord Of The Rings in the box-office stakes – but it’s an undoubtedly elegant affair, and while it relies heavily on performance rather than narrative, the four performances in question are admirably crafted. Dench will probably attract the most attention with her transformation from eccentric intellectual to mere shell, but it would be difficult to single out any of the central quartet for specific praise. Combined, their efforts ensure that Iris is highly affecting for the most part, as well as establishing continuity as the film weaves in and out of past and present, aping the disease itself.

Though far too good to be dismissed as mere teatime drama or affliction-of-the-week movie, where the film does fall down is in the strict biographical sense. Very affectionate as a tribute, this is not a film which yields great insight into the life and works of Iris Murdoch, about whom very little is known by the public in general. Director Richard Eyre may be on record as saying that Murdoch possessed ‘the finest mind of her generation’, but there’s little sense of that here. Though she is introduced as a ‘noted philosopher as well as the author of 26 novels’, the film neglects to mention a single title of any work of hers. The tragedy of Murdoch’s Alzheimer’s might have been rendered all the more poignant had the scene where she stares vacantly at the Teletubbies been juxtaposed with evidence of her once-brilliant mind.

Still, where Iris succeeds enormously is as a deeply sensitive and accurate depiction of Alzheimer’s, and how it impacts on all those around the sufferer. As such, the film, though flawed, is unlikely to leave even the hardest of hearts unmoved.