- The Guardian,
- Friday July 26 2002
Iris ****
Rental and DVD rental
Buena Vista, Cert 15
Richard Eyre's film skilfully intercuts an obsessive relationship through the decades, and it's hard to imagine better casting. The young, vibrant student Iris Murdoch (Kate Winslet) and the unworldy young academic, John Bayley (Hugh Bonneville) grow all too believably into the celebrated middle-aged author (Judi Dench) and her still adoring partner (Jim Broadbent).
In her final desolate years, Murdoch was reduced to a wreck by Alzheimer's, mouthing along with the Teletubbies and apparently unaware that she had ever been a writer. Increasing numbers of us have first-hand knowledge of the condition and this is the first time I've seen it portrayed accurately on screen in all its horror and tedium (Hope Floats suggested it was a little mild forgetfulness).
This is a terribly sad tale, studded with foreboding. "You must accept me as I am," says the young, promiscuous Murdoch. "Now I've got you all to myself and I don't want you," shouts the elderly Bayley in exasperation, saddled with a befuddled shadow of his former partner.
Based on Bayley's book about the author and intelligently scripted by Eyre, Iris is a memorable tribute to love and the power struggles in a long-term relationship. The acting never hits a wrong note (Broadbent won the best supporting Oscar; Dench and Winslet were both nominated) and it's a brave, unflinching film.
Training Day ***
Rental, retail and DVD (£15.99)
Warner, Cert 18
After all those years of straight-arrow heroes, it's a nice surprise that Washington won his first best actor Oscar for this: a bad-to-the-bone cop putting new recruit Ethan Hawke through every kind of hell in his first day as a rookie in an elite drug squad.
He did it with a black director, too: Antoine Fuqua, who makes life on the streets look authentically nightmarish, with assistance from Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg and Macy Gray from Fuqua's days as a video director. The film portrays joining the LAPD as similar to recruitment by a street gang and it works by putting you through the same disorientation as Hawke while a devious plot unfolds, Fuqua's motif - a pitiless huge sun - beats down and Washington harangues him constantly: "You've got to decide if you're a sheep or a wolf." The ending descends to conventional action heroics, but it's a ride worth taking.
Bangkok Dangerous ***
Retail (£15.99) and DVD (£19.99)
Tartan, Cert 18
Extremely bloody and rather sentimental thriller by Hong Kong's splendidly monikered writer-director brothers Oxide and Danny Pang. But it's memorable for being a rare release in the Thai language, for considerable visual flair and for vigorous editing by the Pangs. The lead character is a deaf and dumb hit man, whose detachment from his profession is threatened when he gets involved with a sweet-natured chemist's assistant.
