Iris

Beautiful and touching film! Exceptional acting all round from a star studded cast! Makes me remember just how talented our British film industry is! An absolute must see!!

Possibly one for the Iris Murdoch fan. The story flickers between her later affliction by Alzheimer’s (Judy Dench) and her husband John Bayley’s reaction (Jim Broadbent) and her youthful sexually voracious pomp at Oxford (Kate Winslett) and ‘wooing’ by her future husband (Hugh Bonneville – who does an astonishing impersonation of Jim Broadbent). I say ‘wooing’ because the young Bayley is impossibly incompetent and unattractive. We can see he is a sweet guy, but have no clue (other than pity) as why Murdoch would choose him. We have more Winslett nudity (Little Children, Jude, etc) and it is as un-sexy as ever, even when she is astride a lover. I’m not quite sure why this is – possibly that she is such the professional that she portrays nudity in a very straight and uncoquettish way. Her nudity is somehow confrontational. The sense of decay, intellectual and physical was moving, we feel for Murdoch as she loses the power to write and her memory goes, though we share the disgust of the police officer seeing the slovenly house that Bayley cannot maintain. Fine performances from the central quartet, though you need a strong stomach for the high levels on English luvviedom on display. We are meant to think that Murdoch was amazing, though the snippets of philosophy displayed appeared to be some half-baked mysticism, and knowledge of the work was assumed. Fair enough, but since I’m unfamiliar with her work, I couldn’t share the awe of her that the film presumed. Similarly I could have done with more grit – Bayley spends most of the film gazing on adoringly, which tints the piece rose. This does make the scene where he snaps at Murdoch more dramatic, though garbled sound undermined its effect, and (unlike, say Amour), we don’t have the same sense of the burden that he must have borne.

What a beautiful and moving movie, So sad but true about life as we get older and older. Very well actde

Based on a true story of author who gets alzheimers disease. Great cast. Judi Dench, Kate Winslet, Jim Broadbent. Well acted but disease comes on absurdly fast and the story loses credibility.

Winslet is the young author Dame Iris Murdock with Hugh Bonnevile ('Downton Abbey') playing her future husband; older versions played brilliantly by Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent. The most moving part of this film is watching pensioner Broadbent become increasingly unable to cope with his wifes Alzheimer's in old age and a frustrated Dench slowly dying inside as she looses her ability to write....and sinks into her own world. The scene in which Broadbent shouts at his wife telling her how much he hates her, as he can't cope with her disease anymore, is probably why he won a best supporting role award. Don't rent this if you are depresssed already......