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Most of the reviews I read of this biographical movie said it was just too short.
It’s true that it was only an hour and a half, but I wasn’t so sure
shortness was what made me feel cheated while I watched the credits roll.
It wasn’t the acting—both James Broadbent (who won the Best Supporting
Actor Oscar for his role) and Judi Dench did a good job as the older John Bayley
and Iris Murdoch. And Hugh Bonneville and Kate Winslet did decent performances
of the younger selves of the aging married couple.
The story is based on a biography of the British writer Iris Murdoch, written
by her writer husband John Bayley after her death from Alzheimer’s.
The lack, I felt, in the movie could be explained, perhaps, by John’s assertion
that he never really knew Iris—that she had so many friends (including
lovers) when she was young (and retreated into her own private world when she
wasn’t with them) that he didn’t have her to himself. And when he
finally had her all to himself she was lost in the disease. But I don’t
think that accounts for it entirely.
I couldn’t help leaving the theater feeling that I knew some of the dozens
of characters in Gosford Park better than these two characters (and in
that movie, I had spent a good part of the movie sorting out names). I couldn’t
help but feel cheated when Iris only had two main characters, yet I felt
like I didn’t really know them at all by the end.
All in all though, I think the major flaw in the film is in the script or the
editing thereof, rather than in the other aspects of the film. It was well done
but didn’t go far enough.
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