Directed by Richard Eyre
Screenplay by Richard Eyre and Charles Wood
Book by John Bayley (Elegy for Iris)

Kate Winslet .... Young Iris Murdoch
Hugh Bonneville .... Young John Bayley
Judi Dench .... Iris Murdoch
Jim Broadbent .... John Bayley
Eleanor Bron .... Principal
Angela Morant .... Hostess
Penelope Wilton .... Janet Stone
Siobhan Hayes .... Check-Out Girl
Juliet Aubrey .... Young Janet Stone
Joan Bakewell .... BBC Presenter
Nancy Carroll .... BBC PA
Kris Marshall .... Dr. Gudgeon
Tom Mannion .... Neurologist
Derek Hutchinson .... Postman
Samuel West .... Young Maurice
Saira Todd .... Phillida Stone
Timothy West .... Older Maurice
Juliet Howland .... Emma Stone
Charlotte Arkwright .... Young Phillida Stone
Harriet Arkwright .... Young Emma Stone
Matilda Allsopp .... Little Stone
Steve Edis .... Pianist
Emma Handy .... Older Maurice
Stephen Marcus .... Taxi Driver
Pauline McLynn .... Maureen
Gabrielle Reidy .... Tricia

Produced by
Tom Hedley .... executive producer
Anthony Minghella .... executive producer
Sydney Pollack .... executive producer
David M. Thompson .... executive producer
Harvey Weinstein .... executive producer
Guy East .... executive producer
Robert Fox .... producer
Scott Rudin .... producer
Michael Dreyer .... line producer

Original music by James Horner
Cinematography by Roger Pratt
Film Editing by Martin Walsh

MPAA Rating: R (for sexuality, nudity and some language)
FOR RATING REASONS, GO TO FILMRATINGS.COM, and MPAA.ORG.
PARENTS PLEASE REFER TO PARENTALGUIDE.ORG

Iris Murdoch: A Life
by Peter J. Conradi

Peter Conradi is literary executor of the estate of Iris Murdoch (1919-99) and was her close friend in the 1980s and '90s, so sensible readers will not expect this to be a warts-and-all biography of the distinguished novelist and philosopher. What they get instead is a warm, appreciative portrait focused on Murdoch's formative years: happy Anglo-Irish childhood; intellectual fulfillment at Oxford University, where she joined the Communist Party and formed many enduring friendships; a stint in the civil service and work with refugees during World War II; and the postwar decade, when she began to write the intellectually challenging yet wickedly entertaining novels that made her reputation. John Bayley movingly described his wife's struggle with Alzheimer's disease in Elegy for Iris, and Conradi wisely does not reiterate that material. He concentrates on recapturing the intense young woman who awed fellow students with her brains and enticed men with her blonde hair and generous figure, yet kept everyone at a slight distance, finding epistolary relationships more manageable than the tangled sexual intrigues her fiction explores so acutely. She had many affairs, including a painful one with expatriate (and married) European intellectual Elias Canetti, but marriage to Bayley in 1956 gave her the stability she needed; over the next 40 years she produced 25 steadily more assured and provocative novels, from Under the Net through A Severed Head and The Black Prince to The Green Knight. Conradi uses interviews and Murdoch's journals to good effect in a lengthy but readable text that illuminates the personal experiences that so intimately informed her fiction. --Wendy Smith

SYNOPSIS:
Based on the book ELEGY FOR IRIS, by John Bayley, this biopic tells the inspiring and heartbreaking story of the writer's 40-year romance with English novelist Dame Iris Murdoch. The film cuts back and forth between the young Iris and John (played by Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville), at the height of their romantic adventures as students at Oxford in the 1950s, and the elderly couple (played by Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent), struggling with Iris' decline, as her brilliant mind is ravaged by the effects of Alzheimer's.

Judi Dench gives an outstanding performance--her transformation from a prolific genius of the written and spoken word (Murdoch wrote 26 novels), to the infantile state of losing her language facilities altogether, is truly wrenching. Jim Broadbent is equally touching as her partner for life, who has adored the passionate Iris since they met, but was never fully able to possess her until the tragic end, when he declares in grief, "I've got you now, and I don't bloody want you!" Directed by Richard Eyre, artistic director of Britain's Royal National Theater, the film is uniquely sensitive and finely acted.

Review by DARREL MANSON

Pastor, Artesia Christian Church, Artesia, CA
http://netministries.org/see/churches/ch01198

Darrel has an incredible love and interest in the cinematic arts. His reviews usually include independent and significantly important film. Some of his reviews: Chocolat, Dancer in the Dark, Faithless, Finding Forrester, Memento, O Brother Where art Thou, Pollock, Quills, Shadow of a Vampire, Widow of St Pierre, Jump Tomorrow, Tortilla Soup, Go Tiger, Life As a House, The Business of Strangers, The Man Who Wasn't There, A Beautiful Mind, In the Bedroom, Shipping News, Amelie, I Am Sam, Rollerball, Monster's Ball, Iris

Iris Murdoch's life was defined by words and thought. She was a philosopher and novelist who cared very much about language. Words for her were the building blocks of thought. And she used words to build novels and plays that spoke of our lack of freedom.

Iris tells the story of Murdoch losing those words and thoughts as she progressed through Alzheimer's disease until her death in 1999. It is ironic that her theme of lack of freedom in our lives was played out so dramatically in her disease. The movie is based on the memoir written by her husband, John Bailey.

The story of her illness and decline is told alongside the story of her younger years, as she lived life fully, and perhaps even a little recklessly. The scenes often flash forward and back a little awkwardly, but that in a sense, keeps us as off balance as John and Iris as they go through the ordeal of her Alzheimer's.

It was hard to watch the struggle go on. John (played by Jim Broadbent and Hugh Bonneville [young John]) loves her and takes care of her. It's not easy, and the frustration often overcomes him. At times, though, he is the incarnation of grace.

The two Irises (Judy Dench and Kate Winslet [young Iris] have different tasks in their roles. Winslet as the younger Iris is constantly growing in vigor and life. Dench is slowly losing all that it means to be alive.

My first reaction was that this was a version of Hell. I'm sure that Jean-Paul Sartre, the subject of one of her first books, would have understood this as one of the many ways we have our hell in our lives. But as I gave it some time to settle in, I saw the movie more as a trip through Purgatory.

Of course, as a Protestant, I have never given much weight to the doctrine of Purgatory, but the film operates much as the concept works. Purgatory is designed to purge our sins. This is not eternal damnation, either for Iris or her husband. To be sure, it is hard. Some of the time she knows that she is losing her very self. Some of the time she is aware that something just isn't there. And in the end, the Iris that was no longer is, even though her body is still there.

The telling of the stories side by side allows us to see that in some ways the Purgatory (and it's both Iris's and John's Purgatory) is rooted in the past. The younger John notes to a friend that when she is writing that she is away in her own world, but she always comes back. But as we watch her decline, we know she is going into a world from which she will not come back. Her freedom as a young woman is contrasted with her growing dependence as she loses her words, her thoughts.

There is a scene early in her affliction that shows her undergoing a test in which she is to give the name of the objects she is shown. As she struggles with simple words, we know that the most important thing in her life is slipping away from her. When her final book is published, she receives a copy in the mail, but has no knowledge of what it is.

John's Purgatory may be harder, because he is aware throughout. Iris at least escapes much of the suffering, because she has no memory of what she has lost. But John always knows what he and Iris are losing. Eventually, he can no longer take care of her. Even when one knows it is the right decision, it is hard and painful to let go.

But one of the characteristics of Purgatory is that it is designed to lead to grace. And there are ways that peace and grace do come.

The film is emotionally gripping. I haven't had a lot of experience with Alzheimer's, but the movie rings true to I what experience I have had. As such, this may be very hard to watch for someone who has a loved one with this disease. And in many ways, it is frightening for anyone who cherishes their minds.

Related links:
Iris Murdoch Resources
The Iris Murdoch Society

Iris Film
Subject: Iris
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002
From: Jim Rea