Iris | |
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Directed by | Richard Eyre |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | Elegy for Iris by John Bayley |
Produced by | |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Roger Pratt |
Edited by | Martin Walsh |
Music by | James Horner |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Miramax Films (through Buena Vista International in the United Kingdom and Ireland) [1] |
Release dates |
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Running time | 90 minutes [1] |
Countries |
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Language | English |
Budget | $5.5 million |
Box office | $16.2 million [2] |
Iris is a 2001 biographical drama film about novelist Iris Murdoch and her relationship with her husband John Bayley. Directed by Richard Eyre from a screenplay he co-wrote with Charles Wood, the film is based on Bayley's 1999 memoir Elegy for Iris . [3] Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent portray Murdoch and Bayley during the later stages of their marriage, while Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville appear as the couple in their younger years. The film contrasts the start of their relationship, when Murdoch was an outgoing, dominant individual compared to the timid and scholarly Bayley, and their later life, when Murdoch was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and tended to by a frustrated Bayley in their North Oxford home in Charlbury Road. The beach scenes were filmed at Southwold in Suffolk, one of Murdoch's favourite haunts.
The film had its world premiere in Los Angeles on 14 December 2001, followed by a theatrical release in the United Kingdom on 18 January 2002 and in the United States on 29 March. It grossed $16 million on a $5.5 million budget and received positive reviews, with praise towards the performances. For his role as Bayley, Broadbent won Best Supporting Actor at the 74th Academy Awards, with Dench (Best Actress) and Winslet (Best Supporting Actress) also receiving nominations.
When the young Iris Murdoch meets fellow student John Bayley at Somerville College, Oxford, he is a naive virgin easily flummoxed by her libertine spirit, arch personality, and obvious artistic talent. Decades later, little has changed and the couple keep house, with John doting on his more famous wife. When Iris begins experiencing forgetfulness and dementia, however, the devoted John struggles with hopelessness and frustration, [3] and becomes her carer, as his wife's mind deteriorates from the ravages of Alzheimer's disease. [4]
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 79% of 110 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's critical consensus states, "A solidly constructed drama, Iris is greatly elevated by the strength of its four lead performances." [5] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [6]
Dame Jean Iris Murdoch was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her first published novel, Under the Net (1954), was selected in 1998 as one of Modern Library's 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Her 1978 novel The Sea, The Sea won the Booker Prize. In 1987, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked Murdoch twelfth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
John Oliver Bayley, CBE, FBA, FRSL was a British academic, literary critic and writer. He was the Warton Professor of English at the University of Oxford from 1974 to 1992. His first marriage was to the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch.
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Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre is an English film, theatre, television and opera director. Eyre has received numerous accolades including three Laurence Olivier Awards as well as nominations for six BAFTA Awards and two Tony Awards. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1992 News Year Honours, and knighted in the 1997 New Year Honours.
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The 55th British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTAs, took place on 24 February 2002 at the Odeon Leicester Square in London, honouring the best national and foreign films of 2001. Presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, accolades were handed out for the best feature-length film and documentaries of any nationality that were screened at British cinemas in 2001.
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