VHS Movie Reviews for Stanley & Iris [VHS]

Stanley & Iris [VHS]

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VHS Movie Reviews of Stanley & Iris [VHS]

Movie Review: An Important Subject with Two Stars Meandering Through a TV-Movie-Level Vehicle
Summary: 3 Stars

As the last film directed by the redoubtable Martin Ritt, this 1990 drama is full of good intentions about adult illiteracy and has two proven star actors, Jane Fonda and Robert DeNiro, in the lead roles. Nonetheless, it rarely hovers above the level of a Lifetime TV-movie, as the story amounts to a series of episodes around the burgeoning relationship between Iris, a recently widowed worker in a pastry factory and Stanley, a quiet, illiterate cook who likes to invent mechanical contraptions in the privacy of his apartment. They meet when he is hired at the company cafeteria, but he loses his job when it becomes clear he cannot read or write. Realizing his illiteracy has prevented him from taking care of his ailing father, Stanley asks Iris to teach him. The rest is pretty inevitable, though there are affecting moments along the way mainly because DeNiro is able to convey the basic decency and veiled humiliation of his character.

What I do miss in DeNiro's performance is the edge of danger that makes him truly transcend his best roles like what he did right after this film as Jimmy Conway in Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas". Stanley seems to be a distant cousin of DeNiro's similarly passive and inarticulate character in Ulu Grosbard's 1984 "Falling in Love". In what was to be her last film for fifteen years, Jane Fonda seems woefully miscast, looking too intellectually alert and physically aerobicized to portray Iris with conviction. Begging for a Kathy Bates-type to inhabit her, Iris should be downcast about her life and feeling a deepening loneliness about her situation, but Fonda's off-screen resourcefulness makes it difficult to believe this woman would truly feel stuck. It also feels disingenuous of the character to talk about her weight concerns and wanting a couple of eclairs when we are looking at an actress who has made millions off her workout tapes.

Regardless, Ritt is a master when it comes to showing the trials of everyday people in working class settings, and there is genuine chemistry between the two actors, which helps considerably as the story meanders toward its conclusion. The rest of the cast is used inconsistently as plot devices, in particular, Swoosie Kurtz as Iris's battered sister, who oddly disappears midway through the story, and Martha Plimpton as Iris's sullen, impregnated daughter. I have to conclude the primary problem with the film is the episodic screenplay by Harriet Frank, Jr. and Irving Ravetch, both of whom have teamed with Ritt on a number of superior films like "Hud" and "Norma Rae". The 2004 DVD has no extras.

Movie Review: Real Romance
Summary: 4 Stars

I'm not big into romance movies. However, this one is a solid winner worthy of your time spent watching it. Good story, solid acting, strength shown throughout. Enjoy!

Movie Review: LOW-KEY BUT DELIGHTFUL BLUE-COLLAR ROMANCE
Summary: 4 Stars

Like your sentimental flicks fudge-free? Rent this one pronto, if only for the numbing serenity of a tamed De Niro and a button-down Jane Fonda. No big-budget romantic histrionics here. Neither of them particularly original in how they approach their characters: Fonda a plucky, quietly sensible working mother in the face of hardships, De Niro a man who works in a cafeteria kitchen and cleans lavatories. But originality is not really what's needed in this simple film about simple people and their loves beneath the stars. It is easy to see why films like this get glossed over come Oscar time, but it's unfair. All characters have their particular voices and seem refreshingly authentic. So, to a surprising degree, does the movie. Don't read too much of the plot, it should make for an excellent rental for a leisurely afternoon.

Movie Review: DeNiro's finest work
Summary: 5 Stars

This is a very sweet, sadly overlooked gem of a movie. Robert DeNiro, in a sharp departure from his typical tough-guy role, plays the shy Stanley, who doesn't know how to read. He meets Iris, played by Jane Fonda (Hanoi Jane is not my favorite, but she is superb here) who teaches him reading as their friendship and love blossom.
It is refreshing to see a film about people instead of explosions and elves and monsters. I wonder why DeNiro didn't get an Oscar nod for this one.