Quick takes

Based on John Bayley's two memoirs about his marriage to novelist Iris Murdoch, Iris is in almost all respects expertly done. But the movie, directed by Richard Eyre, from a screenplay by Eyre and Bayley, is so saturated with details from Bayley's books that the story can't breathe. It's more collage than narrative. The film moves back and forth without much logic between the years of the couple's courtship, when Bayley was desperately trying to hold on to Murdoch, and the final years of their marriage, when Bayley's love is tested not by her uncompromising individuality but by her struggle with Alzheimer's.

Judi Dench is excellent as the mature Iris, conveying her (pre-Alz­heimer's) intelligence and forceful character with sharpness--sharpness of eye, face and diction. Kate Winslet is appealing as the young Iris, soft where Dench is hard, but equally charismatic. Hugh Bonneville and Jim Broadbent as the young and old John Bayley, respectively, look so uncannily similar, and their performances blend so naturally, that they seem to be one actor, and a good one.

Unfortunately, the characters don't exist in interesting relation to one another. Bayley is presented as a bumbling fool who never understands why Murdoch is willing to spend any time with him, much less marry him. The movie makes that point all too well. Though we can understand why the real Bayley wants to elegize his beloved as a goddess-figure, the imbalance of personalities undermines the love story. It seems that Murdoch needs Bayley only when, because of Alzheimer's, she isn't really Murdoch anymore.