Can you recall any truly memorable movie biography of a great literary figure? Shakespeare In Love doesn’t really count. Has there been a film that captures the epic canvas of Dickens’ life and times, the boozy agonies of Dylan Thomas or the inner workings of Agatha Christie’s little grey cells?
Nothing comes to mind, probably because film can rarely do justice to a creative life spent either waiting for inspiration to strike or scribbling like fury when the Muse decides to pay a call, it doesn’t exactly make for riveting drama or edge of the seat viewing.
Iris may allow us a glimpse into the world of Booker prize-winning novelist, Dame Iris Murdoch, but it is less of a fully-rounded biography and much more of a deeply felt love story. Elegantly ebbing between past and present, it pays touching tribute to the companionship that Murdoch found in a marriage to academic John Bayley that endured in sickness and in health, through the glory glow of fiery youth to the tragic last days of bewildered silence.
The cruel irony of Murdoch’s story is that she died from Alzheimer’s. This woman whose entire life was defined by her love of language and penetrating understanding of philosophy was eventually betrayed by the failings of a brutally beleaguered mind. The poignancy of that journey is felt in all its emotional force, thanks to a quartet of quite extraordinary performances.
Kate Winslet, playing the young Iris, invests her with a fearless curiosity and a greedy appetite for small, treasured moments. Puffing on a cigarette, plunging naked into the inviting waters of a river or the equally inviting arms of another woman, she rushes to embrace all the joys of living. Even when her actions may seem to hurt or offend, she doesn’t explain and she never apologises.
Judi Dench’s older Iris is wise and more serene but, as illness comes to claim her, Dench’s eyes manage to suggest the fading embers of that once unquenchable spirit. There is something hauntingly sad about the old woman bewitched by the Teletubbies and struggling to remember events that happened only a heartbeat earlier. Anyone with close personal experience of Alzheimer’s will recognise the descent into darkness as Iris becomes violent, incontinent and unmanageable. The film bravely refuses to shirk the truth of the illness.
Dench and Winslet seem sure-fire Oscar and BAFTA contenders, but their achievements shouldn’t blind us to the equally accomplished playing of their leading men. Hugh Bonneville’s stammering, unworldly, young Bayley seamlessly flows into Jim Broadbent’s interpretation of the eccentric older man whose selfless devotion to Murdoch could melt a heart of stone. On the surface, he is a genial, rather eccentric old duffer, but his tender solicitations and childish intimacies reveal an incurable romantic.
Any reservations about Iris stem from the pedestrian direction of Richard Eyre, who doesn’t attack this with bold cinematic sweep but leaves you feeling that it will seem perfectly at home when it eventually appears on television. The screenplay tends to conspire in this stitching together of incidents from the present and snapshots of the past into a feature-length scenario that is impressionistic and less concerned with the bigger picture of Murdoch’s literary legacy.
The one thing that shines out from Iris is the love between Murdoch and Bayley. They found a spiritual and romantic connection that lasted a lifetime. Even bowed by age and sinking spirits, they beam with silly playground contentment at the comforting knowledge that they have each other. There can be few more heartbreaking sights in recent cinema than Broadbent’s rising distress at the recognition that his beloved soulmate is gradually retreating into a private hell that he cannot share.
In less skilful hands, the love between Murdoch and Bayley might seem unbearably soppy. Thanks to Winslet and Bonneville and Dench and Broadbent, it rings diamond-true, inspiring both admiration and empathy. The film itself may sound downbeat and depressing, but again it is the quality of the acting that makes it life-affirming and special. Bracket this with last week’s release of Last Orders and the quality end of the British film industry has had a flying start to 2002.
Thanks to Maree Wilson for sending this article which appeared in The Daily Express (UK) on January 18, 2002