IRIS (2001)  **

Reviewed 12/14/01

Jim Broadbent, Judy Dench, and Kate Winslet are three of the best actors working today (even if Dench is a tad overrated), so IRIS comes as a disappointment when even they cannot sustain this material about the life of British novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch.  Throughout, the movie switches between Iris and lover John Bayley in their youth and in old age.  In the former, young fumbling John (Hugh Bonneville) tries to determine his place in the life of young hedonistic Iris (Kate Winslet), who is romantically popular among both men and women.  In the latter, old befuddled John (Jim Broadbent) deals with an Iris (Judi Dench) coming down with Alzheimer’s.  This section seems determined to beat us over the head with what a terrible disease Alzheimer’s is, and honestly, it is hard to imagine a more emotionally devastating illness, but the movie makes this point pretty quickly.   The rest is tedious repetition.  Since the youth section mostly plays counterpoint by showing the amazing joie de vivre Iris has lost, it never gains much dramatic momentum or emotional resonance on its own.  IRIS finally boils down to another disease-of-the-week movie, but it tries (and fails) to be audacious by showing a lot of Kate Winslet’s breasts.  Nothing against Winslet’s breasts, but even they can’t save this movie.  (Despite rumors that Winslet might be caving in to pressure to get a Hollywood body, thankfully, she still looks like an ordinary woman and not a Parker Posey.)