Iris

By PETER CALDER

(Herald rating: * * * * )

A solid rather than inspiring portrait of the novelist Iris Murdoch, this film is elevated into something occasionally remarkable by virtue of its extraordinary performances, particularly Dench's heartbreaking depiction of the writers remorseless descent into the twilight of Alzheimer's disease.

The film is based on the two books - Elegy for Iris and Iris and Her Friends - written by her husband of 40 years John Bayley, an eminent literary critic and Oxford don who, despite his dry academic background, rendered their life together into memoirs as touching as they were fascinating and full of acute observation about his subject and himself.

Across both books stretches the shadow of dementia - the curtain had descended by the time Bayley began writing - and it darkens much of the film, too. But the style of episodic reminiscence translates poorly to screen and both Eyre (a former director of Britain's Royal National Theatre) and the writer (Charles Wood, a veteran who penned Help and The Knack) never come completely to grips with the challenge of adaptation.

The central device, which is to chop back and forth between Murdoch's younger and later lives, is meant to underline the tragedy of her affliction. But it robs the central story of much of its emotional coherence and its potential for ferment.

Iris assumes a knowledge of its subject's literary pedigree which is taken for granted and described as "acclaimed" only in passing. She springs into view fully formed and brilliant and, since we have no investment in her evolution it's harder to have any in her disintegration.

That said, and despite Eyre's plain, even wooden direction, Dench makes something piercingly affecting of the role. The tragedy of her disease is that she loses words first ("If one doesn't have words," the younger Iris remarks presciently, "how does one think?") and to watch her sailing into the dark hole is almost unbearable. As she stands before an open door wondering "which side do I go?" or gets puzzled by the word "puzzled", Dench makes of a blank and confounded stare a thing of great expressiveness.

She is ably supported by Winslet (though they share the screen time, Dench always feels like the star) whose portrayal rhymes perfectly with the older woman's. And Broadbent's tender, submissive Bayley, who calls Iris "my little mouse" is extraordinarily well-judged.

The film, perhaps conscious of alienating its target audience, passes lightly over the sensualist Murdoch's sexual libertarianism and feels a little reverential and plodding as a result. But it repays the price of admission many times just to watch Judi Dench at work.

Cast: Judi Dench, Kate Winslet, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Bonneville

Director: Richard Eyre

Running time: 90 mins

Rating: M (adult themes, medium-level sex scenes, low-level coarse language)

Screening: Previews this weekend, Village, Rialto

Opens: Thursday