But the two John Bayley actors were superb, purely sublime, especially Broadbent who won an AA for his supporting role. I find Winslet and Dench both unappealing and harsh, with zero charisma or star-quality, and I consider both to be vastly over-rated. The film seemed to me like a documentary. Not sure that it's a good idea to do a flick with the main character going through declining mental ability, struck me as unkind and nasty. I rate it 4/10. NB: Great to see an orchestra aping Harry James's wonderful "Cherry Pink". Costumes and sets very fine.

Well, as of my submission there will be 136 reviews of this movie. Which just goes to show that in our time of semi-education, where millions have gone to college to little effect except to have the concept of celebrity imposed on supposed intellectuals; it is preferable to the masses to watch a movie about Iris Murdoch rather than read or--what is more likely--dabble in her while sipping lattes at the Barnes and Noble. That is to say, I understand why this depressing and incoherent movie has gotten so much attention! But I couldn't finish it! (And I like Judi Dench.) John Bayley was portrayed as a male bimbo--a scholarly and compliant cuckold, so silly in his puppy dog willingness to accept her infidelities, that one wonders how he could have become a don. (Were they all so weak and ineffectual at that time?) What Iron-maiden Murdoch saw in him is beyond me; yet, on second thought, he is probably the sort of, what we would call, metro-sexual figure that might fit in quite well with her self-consciously styled alpha-female personality. Somewhat pedestrian for the learned and profound Iris, if you ask me.In that vein I think that all of Iris' years were years of decline. She just had to be sexually promiscuous and something of an exhibitionist. Ditto the communism. And the Sartre too! And her assaults on bourgeois traditions and morality. All the trendy intellectual thumb twiddling of the post-war era. In any period, I just do not like people of her genre. if she had been born 25 years earlier she would have been a Vita Sackville-West or, worse, a Virginia Woolf. The traction these writers have retained is almost wholly due to modern feminism. Ditto Murdoch. That the reader may gauge my reference point, I find Dorothy Sayers to be incomparably better as well as more friendly and reassuring. Sayers learned from her mistakes and was comfortable with her sex. Murdoch was a woman who was not happy with her lot--being a woman, that is.So to endure to the end a movie whose end was an ending from the very beginning and to focus on the dregs of the end of the end as does this movie; the bitter, slobbering attempts of a miserable creature--unaware of herself in so many ways and unable to retain enough memory to put together the lessons she should have learned--to hold together her human identity; all the while clawing and resisting the booby of a man who shared her bed for over 40 year--well, I could see the finale.

Iris Murdoch's life unfolds emotionally in 'Iris'. This biopic shows the strength and weakness of this late legendary novelist with ease. Director Richard Eyre's version of showing this biopic has nudity, frustration and beyond all, love.'Iris' is crispy executed in 90-minutes in running-time. Some sequences are brilliantly done, the inter-cuts are smoothly removed at times, and selfishly put back again. The culmination is very sensitively executed, and leaves a tear in your eye.Richard Eyre has made a memorable biopic, no two options on that! He deserves a pat for handling the emotional portions with such ease. Roger Pratt's Cinematography compliments wonderfully to Eyre's direction.Performance-Wise: It's a Judi Dench show all the way. The legendary Actress plays Iris, when suffering Alzheimer's disease, flawlessly. Jim Broadbent as Iris's husband John Bayley, is very sincere. Kate Winslet as the young and peppy Iris, is absolutely lovable. Hugh Bonneville as young Bayley, does well.On the whole, This Biopic Is Truly Worth A Watch!

Iris is a very moving film, in which Judi Dench and James Broadbent portray the ageing characters of Iris Murdoch and John Bayley, still much in love, as together they deal with Iris's Alzeimer's disease. The film is based on John Bayley's book of the real-life struggle which he and his famous literary wife endured. This stage of life is neither sad nor pathetic, but two people facing together life's sometimes cruel fate.We see through a series of flashbacks how they met and forged a lifelong relationship. The younger Iris and John are performed by Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville, as a fun-loving couple cycling through the countryside and going for swims off the nearest riverbank. Iris was a worldly woman involved with multiple male partners and John, a late-bloomer with a stutter, who doted on the gorgeous young Iris. Eventually, Iris settled into her role as a national literary figure, giving interviews and speeches in which beautifully crafted sentences rolled off her tongue. Then, rather suddenly, she was stricken with Alzeimer's disease.I was reminded of my own grandparents' fight with Alzeimer's as I watched Judi Dench in Iris Murdoch's character. Like my grandmother, Iris lost contact with reality and life ceased to make sense to her; yet, there were moments when she let us know that she still treasured those who cared for her. Physically strong and able to go for long walks, Iris had stamina that far surpassed her capacity to understand. These are the cruel ironies of Alzeimer's disease. As John Bayley, James Broadbent was the loving and faithful husband, who gave his all until he reached his own breaking point and agreed to put her in a home.Other actors who appear are Samuel West and Timothy West (in a brief cameo) as Iris's friend and John's rival Maurice in youth and old age; Juliet Aubrey and Penelope Wilton, as her friend Janet.John Bayley's book about Iris's illness has produced a fine film with great acting and an honest treatment of a real-life situation.