"Iris: A Memoir" and "Elegy for Iris," two memoirs by English critic John Bayley about his 43-year love affair with his wife, novelist Iris Murdoch, and her final struggle with Alzheimer's disease, were critically celebrated for his touching, unsentimental portrait of not only an uncommon marriage but also the mysteries of love and its endless possibilities. "Iris," the movie version of those books, struggles to match Bayley's achievement. Not that this isn't a fine cast and production, performed with astonishing intelligence and lovingly faithful to the letter and the spirit of this literary union.

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