Admittedly, I ventured to the theater to see Iris because I'd heard so much about the acting performances of Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, and Kate Winslet (who all have been nominated for Oscars), and Iris certainly looked to be the sophisticated choice new releases into the local theaters. The film truly is an acting tour de force, and there's not much else to especially recommend it although it's a competent film. I suspect it will play much better on a small screen.

The story doesn't illuminate novelist Dame Iris Murdoch very much. We learn very little about her philosophy and books other than the fact that she is well respected as a free thinker and novelist, that the younger Iris (Kate Winslet) has romantic flings and likes to swim naked, and that the old Iris (Dench) sinks rapidly into her own childhood, courtesy of Alzheimer's disease.

Director Richard Eyre nobly attempts to fling the audience into an Alzheimer's point of view by switching from young to old Iris every few minutes. Screenwriters Eyre and Charles Wood can make a case for their Alzheimer's structure since the source material is based on John Bayley's memoirs of his wife, written after her illness. This works at first—say in the underwater scenes with Winslet's mermaid act followed with Dench's awkward gurgling in a black bathing suit—but quickly wears out its welcome when sequence snippets jump around in time without cause. Eyre should have studied Godfather II more closely, and noted why Coppola cut down on the amount of time warping. The cutesy transitions back to younger days, triggered by something in the present doesn't duplicate the Alzheimer's experience as Eyre intends. It becomes cliche.

See the film for the acting performances. Left out of the nominations is Hugh Bonneville, who plays the younger Bayley, mostly mirroring the mannerisms of the veteran Broadbent, so his character never quite lights its own fire—remains a credible performance only.

Not so with Winslet. She only mimics Dench's mannerisms subtly—a touch of the spoken language patterns and posture. Her role is to provide a glimpse of what will be lost in the end—the spontaneity, the high energy, and the intellect. Winslet's character appears ahead of its time with her D.H. Lawerence morality. She continually plunges ahead of Bonneville in everything she does, whether it's a bicycle trek through Oxford, exploring her sexuality with a variety of lovers of both genders, or skinny-dipping in the Thames. The best thing Winslet does is internalize the character and live the part believably.

So many actors have played idiot savants, retarded characters, and multiple personalities to gain Oscar favor, but Dench's stands out for her inward complexity. She carries us into her Alzheimer's world on her silent, stooped shoulders far more effectively than Eyre's overwrought film structure. Initial signs of the coming illness are shown as she struggles to complete her last novel. It's going much more slowly than ever, and she sits . . . puzzled where to go next, furrows her brow and tries to spell "puzzle" but it just doesn't look right. She never speaks, yet her face communicates concern.

That worry becomes more pronounced when interviewing with the BBC, and she finds herself lost within her words, unable to complete the thought and forgetting the question. Fear is plainly on her face when she returns home, clutching her husband in near panic. Soon the words are very few, as Alzheimer's forces her inward. The vacant stare, the shadowing of her husband around the house, the peeing on the carpet, the absence of human spirit when repeating phrases—It's only the postman. It's only the postman." These all communicate the world of Alzheimer's, all too well known by loved ones of its victims. Dench nails the descent into this world as no one ever has—all captured through an underplayed internal switch that emerges through her glazed over eyes, subtle twitches of the mouth, and near zombie like walking gait.

No less eloquent is Jim Broadbent's turbulent mixture of love and frustration. Lovers on film are usually young and attractive, but Broadbent and Dench play their elderly roles comfortably like real people. What hell it is to see the person you love slip away to such a distant childlike place, yet leaving their aging body to be taken care of. Content to be caretaker, Broadbent clearly loves his wife and does all he can to protect her from harm, yet he is no goody two shoes. He occasionally loses it. When Iris continually clings to him for protection, the pent up emotions let loose with angry words that his once literate wife can no longer understand. The moment passes, and the forgiving loving husband remains . . . helpless in his own domain.

Edited differently, the film itself would be one of 2001's finest, but at least the script doesn't get in the way of the actors and allows them to shine. Without offering significant insights into Dame Murdoch's literary and philosophical world and without demonstrating the nature of Alzheimer's besides its elementary plot structure, Iris would ordinarily have a short theatrical run and drop from view. But Broadbent and Dent transform the silences into a profound and memorable example of unconditional love.