Aug. 17, 2002 - 2:09 am
ok, so the other Best Picture nominee got delayed for a day.
during my attempt to see all of the big Oscar nominees of 2001 before the actual ceremony happened, i tried without luck to see this film at the theater. unfortunately it was no longer on the screen by the time i was interested in seeing it. so i had to wait for the dvd release. thank goodness Leslie gets to rent videos from Movie Gallery before they go on the shelves. (she works there.) so we watched Iris this evening.
it's another true story based on a previously written novel. and it's super depressing. i don't think it's a great idea to watch this film the night after you've just watched Angela's Ashes (1999). this movie is about the elderly life of a British novelist, Iris Murdoch, and her relationship with her husband as he cares for her. she begins to develop Alzheimer's disease which gets worse and worse over the course of the film. there are a lot of flashbacks, shown at random times throughout the film, which tell about the beginning of the couple's relationship together as college professors.
the film stars Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent as the elderly couple. Broadbent won Best Supporting Actor for his work. Judi Dench was also nominated for Best Actress, and lost to the shite Halle Berry. granted, i haven't yet forced myself to see Monster's Ball (2001). as a younger couple, the actors are Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville. Kate Winslet was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. i really didn't feel that the characters in this film were well developed. even though the movie is mostly about them, i thought it was kind of only half finished. i guess the constant flashbacks hurt the solidity of the characters in my mind. their attempt to tell two stories at once just didn't work out that well.
i'm not a huge fan of any of the actors in this film and that hurt too. although i thought Hugh Bonneville was superb. of course he's the only one of the four that didn't receive an Oscar nomination. wouldn't you know it. and man oh man, Iris Murdoch apparently had the worst haircut imagineable. i can't believe how bad that was. please make me stop looking at it.
i will watch a non-depressing film tomorrow if it kills me. wait, i know what i'm going to be watching. it might be horribly boring at the worst, but i doubt it will be depressing. i didn't go see it at the theater 'cause i thought it sounded boring. we'll see though...