December 14, 2001

Dame Judi As Dame Iris

by Rex Reed

http://www.observer.com/pages/onthetown.asp

Movies about brave, funny, wise people suffering from terminal illnesses are familiar fodder. The point is to show a film in which there’s still dignity in death; otherwise, who would go? If you’ve ever been a caregiver, you know the real untold story is in the caregiving process, not the dying. This is what makes Iris so special. Iris Murdoch was, of course, brilliant, unique and worth caring about, so her death from Alzheimer’s in 1999 had an extra dose of therapeutic compassion, like adrenaline. And Judi Dench—radiant, exasperating, heartbreaking—gives the year’s most luminous performance in the title role. She is cynicism-resistant. But the most important thing that distances Richard Eyre’s wonderful film Iris from other disease-of-the-week movies is that it’s an extraordinary love story about the relationship between the most cherished British writer of the 20th century and her loyal, supportive and adoring husband, John Bayley—a union tested by the years that grew strongest and met its most daunting challenge when the chips were down.

Iris is as much about John as it is about Iris. Based on Mr. Bayley’s two acclaimed memoirs about his wife, excerpted in The New Yorker, the movie is intimate, frank and shattering without being maudlin or sudsy. It crowds a million details from a lifetime of achievement into a remarkably short time frame (it’s only 90 minutes long).

Iris Murdoch—philosopher, poet, playwright, author of 26 novels, who was made a dame by the Queen—believed there was only one freedom of any importance: the freedom of the mind. It’s devastating to see her lose it. The role is double-cast with the splendid Kate Winslet as the young Iris (a jolly, outspoken broth of a girl, bohemian in her passions for nude swimming and sex with both genders, always laughing and shocking everybody) and the magnificent Judi Dench as the mature woman she became, failing at the top of her career (lost in the subway, going blank in the middle of a live BBC interview, forgetting the names of her closest friends), but playing the cards she was dealt with courage and spunk.

It’s wounding to watch the clouding of a clear, first-rate mind, and Dame Judi doesn’t just play the cruel phases of the illness, she lives them. While a million unspoken words cross her mind, a million feelings light her face and eyes. Fighting to keep writing and talking, struggling to hold onto her beloved words, she reacts to her fate first with confusion, annoyance and rage, then resignation and obedience, finally slipping into a smiling, sweet-natured, childlike state while the house sinks into a deplorable clutter and so does she.

Through it all, John suffers the most. The film’s most wrenching moment comes when his frustration finally explodes. During all their years of life together, he took the back seat, sat through her lectures, edited her manuscripts, endured her love affairs, shared her with the public. Now he’s got her all to himself at last, but it’s only scraps. Still, he takes care of her to the end. It is impossible to describe the power and accuracy of the dimensions Jim Broadbent brings to this role. He even looks, sounds and acts like John Bayley—balding, bespectacled, clumsy, stuttering, plain as suet pudding, dull as soapy water, and loving Iris unconditionally. (In an inspired casting coup, Hugh Bonneville, who plays the younger Bayley, has the same mannerisms and looks exactly like a younger Jim Broadbent.) All four of the leading actors lend bold brushstrokes to the canvas of a beloved literary icon worth celebrating.

If you rush to Iris to see Judi Dench give another of her customary command performances, you won’t be disappointed—but there is so much more. The combined artistry of the writing, direction, camerawork and ensemble playing is what gives this movie a status of literacy and optimism worthy of Dame Iris herself.

Thanks to Cindy F.

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