If love is the answer to the question, “What’s life all about?” then Iris is the answer to “What’s a great love story?” In a world where we are never quite sure where the lines of fantasy romance and true love stop, end and become hopelessly intertwined, Iris is a story of hope, of unconditional understanding and a kind of need that surpasses our modern day dependant hybrid of “love”. She with her intellectual, academic and sexual prowess and he with his equally intellectual mind combined with awkward fear and stuttering from one lost innocence to another find each other and never let go.

A true story about Iris Murdoch, this film is a documentation of how life comes full circle in cruel but fair ways. Ms. Murdoch was a vivacious, brilliant writer, thinker, philosopher ahead of her time. She explored her own imagination beyond what was expected of woman of her her time. She accepted and pursued her own sexual self and never apologized for who she was. In her later years she was struck down by Alzheimer’s Disease. Her quick wit and intense love of language was reduced to an absence of thought, loss of memory and decay of her bright shining personality. One thing that was never destroyed, as told in the movie, is the love her husband, played by Jim Broadbent, had for her.

As Murdoch, Dame Judi Dench brings a fascinating real life person from flesh and blood to the big screen with such delicate ferocity. The subtle nuances of her study of Iris as a character and as a human being are 100% convincing, endearing and overwhelmingly genuine. I felt as though I was watching real life unfold in front of my eyes. That is the kind of performance that flatters me as an voyeur, an intelligent, sensitive, honest portrayal of a real person that does not give us any reason to see the actor, only the character.

Broadbent plays a somewhat clumsy, but intelligent and lively counterpart to the wife he could not live without. We travel from the present to the past via beautifully directed flashbacks to a time when Iris and John Bayley were young and finding the love that would accompany them through the rest of their lives. To see Iris portrayed by a young woman, played by Kate Winslet, is to understand the true tragedy of any disease of the mind. So many novels, so many thoughts and ideas flourished in her mind. The reality of the complete erasure of such a gift is sad and is so touchingly recreated in this film it’s a clear window to look through and realize our own weaknesses, our own mortality and our ability to achieve greatness in our lives.

With a slow but harsh descent the writer and director have absorbed many years of the torturous effects of Alzheimer’s. At the same time, recreating such lively, hopeful times from their youth, painting a picture of such rich, full experiences, as you see Iris retreat into her ailing mind in her later years, you feel a strange sense of relief that she and her John lived such a poignant life. It is not a tradeoff for the suffering, the anger, the fear and the struggle of dealing with her disease, however, their days of glory, her writing and his passionate love for her were an achievement that nothing could take away.

The film is well written, directed with care, acted with great skill and takes you down such an emotional road that you feel a bit exhausted by the end. That says a lot about the filmmakers in my opinion. A tour de force in reality and fantasy at the same time…a true opportunity for any self respecting woman to have a good cry! For the men out there who are afraid of a little dose of feelings, get over it, this is a story that transcends the evil “chick flick” genre created by tear-a-phobic males.