Iris

Thursday, January 15, 2004 – 7:30pm
UK/USA 2001. Director: Richard Eyre

Based on the memoir of John Bayley, this touching drama tells the tender and extraordinary story of his enduring relationship with his wife, philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch. The film begins with the unlikely romance of their early days at Oxford in the 1950s to Iris’s death from Alzheimer’s disease in 1999. Well-written and brilliantly acted, Kate Winslet and Judy Dench bring Iris to life as both a young and older woman; while Hugh Bonneville and Jim Broadbent (in an Academy Award winning role) do the same for John, her supportive, if at times, befuddled spouse. The story is bittersweet – a brilliant creative life and the descent into a condition that Murdoch herself described  early on as “a very, very bad, quiet place.” In the end, however, this tender and sensitive movie is a beautiful tribute to the realities and frustrations of Alzheimer’s disease, accurately portraying the life of the affected individual and those close to them.
Colour, 35mm. 91 mins.

The program will include a post-screening discussion with:
Dr. Sheila Nolan. Dr. Nolan is a psychiatrist who works with older individuals through the Geriatric Psychiatry Outreach Team at Vancouver Hospital. She received her medical and psychiatric training in Calgary, Halifax, and Sacramento, California, and has practiced in Vancouver for the past 10 years. She is a long-time aficionado of the works of Iris Murdoch.

Evening moderated by:
Dr. Harry Karlinsky Director of Continuing Medical Education and Professional Development, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia.