Stanley And Iris

There is some justification for the Maltin crew's comment. At the beginning of the film we find Iris (Jane Fonda) sharing her home with her children, her barely working sister, and her shiftless, dishonest brother-in-law. These last two characters disappear quickly from the film and make only brief reappearances. Their relationships with Iris are never developed. The two children are, for the most part, simply "there." There is, likewise, no exploration of Stanley's (De Niro) relationship with his father, except to show unexpressed love and respect. Nor is anything made of the relationship of Stanley with Iris' son. Nor of Stanley with his various employers. Neither Stanley nor Iris seem to have any friends, at least we never see them. There is some very limited development of Iris' relationship with her pregnant unwed daughter. There is a lot of exploration of the relationship between Stanley and Iris. The film is about them and really only about them. Anyone else in the film has little more than a brief walk-on. Is this film "flat" or "thin," or would it be more just to call it "lean?"

This was Martin Ritt's last film. Certainly, it must have mattered to him, and just as certainly he knew how to create a more richly textured film with well-developed subplots. Obviously, he chose not to. He chose instead to concentrate on the relationship between the two title characters and included other characters only if he needed them briefly to better define these two. Stanley and Iris are both tortured souls, troubled by demons, he with illiteracy, she with grief over the death of her husband. Each is afraid to confront these demons before they meet one another, and then not until a long time after their first meeting. They both have a sense of dignity. The harshness of life has taught them to suppress their feelings. They do not show emotion readily. Their lives are simple and dreary. Given who these characters are, it is clear that neither Fonda's nor De Niro's acting will catch fire. And to develop other story lines would simply be a distraction. So we have really just these two characters, and the strands of the story are his life, her life, and the slow cautious development of their life. Again, Ritt could have developed a richly textured film like Robert Benton's "Places in the Heart" (another film about people helping one another escape from adversity and also underappreciated by the critics). Obviously, that wasn't what he wanted. The film that Ritt wanted us to see is this simple straightforward one. In its own special way it is a wonderful film, and it closed Ritt's career in much the same way that "Madadayo" (yet another underappreciated film) closed Kurosawa's.

There are some other apparent weaknesses in the film, although they are not those claimed by the critics, and they too have their reasons. Fonda and De Niro speak a simple language but with a diction inapropriate to their class, and Fonda simply looks too good for a woman who must struggle to keep bread on the table. Neither sounds like they are from New England. Perhaps, they would be more convincing if they looked and spoke like working-class people, with horrible elocution and worse grammar. But that would distance them from us, make us too analytical about their situations and characters, and ultimately alienate us from them. Better to leave audience alienation to the films of Jean-Luc Godard, a director who alienates his audiences as a matter of principal. (He is, after all, a Brechtian.) Life is full of compromises, and so is art. Unlike some critics, I am not incredulous at a woman's of Iris' obvious intelligence and quality of expression having such a dead end job. I doubt few women would be either.

This is not a film about illiteracy. Stanley's illiteracy is simply the vehicle for bringing the characters together and creating his problems. This is a film about people damaged by life through no fault of their own, finally daring to look for some ray of hope. And please, let us not say how much better the film might have been had it ended in tragedy or, at least, further dreariness. Let us admit that we, the audience, also need to find happiness, that we crave to be loved and to feel pride, and let us not warily turn our backs to these characters who seek no more than that.

It takes a certain meanness to rate this film, as did the Maltin team, at the same level as "The Toxic Avenger." And how should one react to Roger Ebert, who gave this film a thumbs down while granting three-and-a-half stars to Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left" (1977), an amateurish ultraviolent film that begins with the brutal murder of a young girl and ends with the horrific vengence exacted by her parents? A modern American suburban version of "The Virgin Spring?" I don't think so, no matter what Wes Craven may claim as his inspiration.

I may be too uncritical, but I like "Stanley & Iris." I am won over by its simplicity and its nobility. I do not find it be either flat or underdeveloped. Ebert and the Maltin team were clearly disappointed, perhaps, because they were expecting a different film. "Stanley & Iris" is not a great film, but in its quiet, humble, dignified way it is certainly at least a good film, and we are diminished if we dismiss it too coolly.


REALLY HEARTWARMING BUT...   April 22, 2003
it is as if these people are not living in America or like it was in set mid seventies.Though de Niro and Jane Fonda are excellent you feel sadness throughout the whole movie except for the last bit.I felt like I should give them alms.


It's okay...   September 2, 2002
I was flipping through the channels at home and I came upon this movie. What interested me was that Robert DeNiro played a man that was unable to read and write. I am a special education teacher that teaches learning disabled students. I thought that the movie could teach them how important reading and writing was in every day life. I think that for this purpose the movie has served me well. The story, etc. was okay. 8th graders were interested enough to watch it through.


Heartwarming!   November 7, 2001
G. Shkodra (Montreal, Canada)
I fell in love with Jane Fonda many, many years ago when I first saw "They shoot horses, don't they?", and since then I've never missed a movie featuring this beautiful lady. I was amazed when I first saw de Niro in... no, as a matter of fact I can't even remember, since I've actually seen all, I mean ALL the movies de Niro has made so far... Yes, you're right, these guys are two of my favorite actors, and so, I was really curious to see this movie, although I knew beforehand that I wasn't going to be mesmerized. And in fact I wasn't, but I liked this movie anyway and I still watch it every time it happens to show on TV. This is the kind of movie you need to watch just to make a change, as the vast majority of movies released in the recent years are about gangsters, terrorism, money, betrayal, unfaithfulness, cheating and so on. Having said that, this movie reminds me of "Falling in love", although I like this one better. These two are not the kind of movies you'd like to see an actor such as de Niro in, since he has built his reputation playing don V. Corleone, J. La Motta, A. Capone or T. Bickle, and I have to admit that J. Fonda is much more at ease in this "down to the ground" kind of character, just as M. Streep is much more at ease than de Niro in "Falling in love". Anyway, all in all an interesting movie, although I can't imagine what could have possibly crossed in more than 20 million american illiterates' head when they've heard the final line of the movie: "Everything is possible, Iris, everything is possible!" - shoot to the screen or believe that miracles can happen?