Stanley et Iris

I found this to be a so-so romance/drama that has a nice ending and a generally nice feel to it. It's not a Hallmark Hall Of Fame-type family film with sleeping-before-marriage considered "normal" behavior but considering it stars Jane Fonda and Robert De Niro, I would have expected a lot rougher movie, at least language-wise.

The most memorable part of the film is the portrayal of how difficult it must be to learn how to read and write when you are already an adult. That's the big theme of the movie and it involves some touching scenes but, to be honest, the film isn't that memorable.

It's still a fairly mild, nice tale that I would be happy to recommend.

Watch the great acting closely, and you might forget you are watching a very incomplete film. It boggles my mind how disappointing this film truly is. You have two wonderful actors, smart dialogue, and a great premise, how could you screw up? The problem with Stanley & Iris is that it feels like it is missing major scenes. The viewer has no sense of time what so ever with this film. It moves at a break-neck pace which isn't called for. If this film would have slowed down a little, explained some scenes a little clearer, you'd have a wonderful little film. The condition of this film is a mess!! What a shame.

As the last film directed by the redoubtable Martin Ritt, this 1990 drama is full of good intentions about adult illiteracy and has two proved 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 on her workout tapes.

Regardless, Ritt is also 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 DVD has no extras.

Iris King (Jane Fonda) is recently widowed and working at the bakery factory. Money is tight. Her purse is stolen and Stanley Cox (Robert De Niro) helps her. He's an illiterate cook at the factory canteen. She has two kids Kelly (Martha Plimpton) and Richard. Her unemployed sister Sharon (Swoosie Kurtz) and her no-good husband Joe (Jamey Sheridan) are staying with her. Kelly reveals that she's pregnant. Iris and Stanley start hanging out together and she finds out his secret. She lets the cat out of the bag to his boss and he's fired. He's left with menial work and forced to leave his father in an old-age home. When his father dies, he can't even spell the name for the death certificate. He asks her to teach him how to read.

The story has a lot of tough things going on for these poor people. The problem is that it's done with little drama. Both Fonda and De Niro are going low key with their performances. The romance is a slow boil. The movie doesn't hit big points hard or stay with them. The first big move is Joe hitting Sharon. Yet there is little follow up with them. Kelly is pregnant but that's another side trip. The most compelling part of the movie is the illiteracy but I'm not impressed with them transitioning to a romance. The acting is solid but it's all done without much tension or drama.

This may not be a memorable classic, but it is a touching romance with an important theme that stresses the importance of literacy in modern society and the devastating career and life consequences for any unfortunate individual lacking this vital skill.

The story revolves around Iris, a widow who becomes acquainted with a fellow employee at her factory job, an illiterate cafeteria worker named Stanley. Iris discovers that Stanley is unable to read, and after he loses his job, she gives him reading lessons at home in her kitchen. Of course, as you might predict, the two, although initially wary of involvement, develop feelings for each other...

Jane Fonda competently plays Iris, a woman with problems of her own, coping with a job lacking prospects, two teenage children (one pregnant), an unemployed sister and her abusive husband. However, Robert DeNiro is of course brilliant in his endearing portrayal of the intelligent and resourceful, but illiterate, Stanley, bringing a dignity to the role that commands respect. They aren't your typical charming young yuppie couple, as generally depicted in on screen romances, but an ordinary working class, middle aged pair with pretty down to earth struggles.

I won't give the ending away, but it's a lovely, heartwarming romance and a personal look into the troubling issue of adult illiteracy, albeit from the perspective of a fictional character.