Iris: A Memoir of Iris Murdoch, 2001

This is an earnest, somber film about a brilliant mind being destroyed by Alzheimer's. The film's shifts from dying Iris to younger Iris are slightly confusing at first (fittingly, considering the subject matter), but when the twin storylines develop, their parallel nature is as subtle as a sledge hammer (this is not a subtle script). The ending achieves poignancy without mawkishness. Well acted by the four principals, although little of Kate Winslet's young Iris can be found in Dench's portrayal of the older woman. It has been suggested that neither the real Iris nor the real John are faithfully portrayed, and this is probably true: there is little of the brilliant novelist in either Winslet's or Dench's character, and Bonneville's and Broadbent's two Johns both seem to be somewhat dim bulbs, incapable of being serious literary critics.

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