Iris film review

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IRIS

Keep a tissue to hand, because Richard Eyre's handsome biopic of writer Iris Murdoch expertly tugs the heart-strings and fires the soul.

At the film's heart are tour-de-force performances from Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent as Iris and her brilliant yet shy husband John Bayley, whose lives are torn asunder when she succumbs to the onslaught of Alzheimer's.

If there's any justice in this world, both will walk away with Academy Awards for their sterling efforts. Iris draws inspiration from the Bayley's memoirs, chronicling his wife's incredible career, and courage in the face of adversity, until her untimely death on February 8, 1999.

The film elegantly cuts back and forth between interlocking timeframes: the early '50s when Iris (played by Kate Winslet) first meets John (Hugh Bonneville) whilst studying at St Anne's College in Oxford; and the late '90s when the disease takes hold of the writer, transforming her into a shadow of her former self. Eyre's slavish devotion to Bayley's reminiscences invests the picture with powerful emotion, spilling over into almost overwhelming grief as the disease takes hold of the writer.

Like the books, the film doesn't really address Iris's writing - she produced 26 novels in 40 years - or the creative process.

Winslet and Bonneville beautifully mimic their older co-stars, sketching the foundations of the couple's relationship, but the film belongs to Dench and Broadbent, whose portrayal is effortless and emotionally raw.

Their relationship is beautifully sketched, such as the delightful verbal sparring which sustains the couple. "Love is the only language everyone understands," Iris notes. "I know," replies John, "but I can't speak it!"

The pair understand one another perfectly, so when Alzheimer's begins to rob Iris of her ability to communicate, John has nobody to talk to but himself. "Keep tight hold of me and it will be alright," he keeps saying, trying to convince himself - as much as Iris - that they will always be together.

It's deeply upsetting to witness Iris's decline into virtual incoherence, unable to communicate with the outside world. Dench plays these scenes with unsettling honesty, shuffling vacantly around the couple's home, her mind snagging itself on certain sentences.

Equally powerful is John's despair as the woman he loves slips away: "I used to be so afraid being with you, now I can't be without you," he sobs.