erik-185 This is a complex film that explores the effects of Fordist and Taylorist modes of industrial capitalist production on human relations. There are constant references to assembly line production, where workers are treated as cogs in a machine, overseen by managers wielding clipboards, controlling how much hair the workers leave exposed, and firing workers (Stanley) who meet all criteria (as his supervisor says, are always on time, are hard workers, do good work) but who may in some unspecified future make a mistake. This system destroys families - Stanley has to send his father to a nursing home (where he quickly dies) after Stanley loses his job. Iris' daughter is a single teen mother who drops out of high school to take a job in the plant. References are made to the fact that now, with declining wages, both partners need to work, the implication being that there's nobody left at home to care for the kids. Iris' husband is dead from an illness, and with the multiple references in the film about the costs of medical care, the viewer must wonder if he might have lived with better and more costly care. Iris' brother in law gets abusive after yet another unsuccessful day at the unemployment office when his wife yells at him for buying a beer with her savings instead of leaving it for her face lift and/or teeth job (even the working class with no stake in conventional bourgeois notions of perfection and beauty buy into them). The one reference to race in the film is through a black factory line worker whose husband is in jail (presumably, he's also black, and black men suffer disproportionally high incarceration rates). She remarks that he, like her, "is doing time" - her family is composed of a prisoner and a wage slave.Stanley, however, still believes in human relations and is therefore for most of the film outside of the system of Fordist capitalism. He cares for his father in spite of the fact that it was his father's traveling salesman job that resulted in his illiteracy - he has not yet reduced human relations to a purely instrumental contract, as Iris' brother in law does (suggesting that he "married the wrong sister"). He does not, as Iris says, conform to the work-eat-sleep routine of everyone else; rather, he uses technology and the techniques of industrial production in an artisanal and creative way, in a sort of Bauhaus ideal. This was the dream of early modernists and 1920's socialists (such as the Bauhaus) - to use technology to provide for all basic needs, allowing for more free time for creative human work and fuller human relations. He is also outside of traditional gender relations. He cooks, he cleans, he cares for his family, and he knows how to iron. Iris, on the other hand, lives in a traditionally male role - she's a factory worker, the mains source of income for her (extended) family, and she brings Stanley into the public realm, traditionally off-limits to women. By teaching him to read and write, she gives him access to the world of knowledge, also traditionally gendered male.Literacy here is used as a metaphor for the (traditionally masculine) public realm and the systems of circulation (monetary, vehicular, cultural) that enable participation in the public realm. Without this access, Stanley is feminized - the jobs open to him are cooking and cleaning. He is excluded from all regular circulations, unable to participate in the monetary (can't open a bank account), in the vehicular (can't get a driver's license, can't ride the bus), and in the social (he asks if he exists if he can't write his name).After learning to read, he grabs books on auto repair, farming, and spirituality (the Bible). The Word of God is therefore relativized, placed on the same value plane as how-to books. In fact, organized religion in general is only very occasionally present - the Bible also appears on a dresser as the camera pans to find Stanley and Iris having sex. It is, however, acknowledged as a moral force - Iris, clearly a character devoted to living a "good" life, mentions at the beginning of the film that her rosary was among the objects lost in a purse snatching.Once able to read, he enters the system and lands a managerial position with a health care plan, a car, and a house, taking his place at the head of the family, the breadwinner. Presumably, he's an industrial designer, dreaming up products that will require others enduring the drudgery of the assembly line to produce. This ending, probably the only bit of conventional Hollywood in the film, is so incongruous with all that has come before that I at least wonder if it wasn't forced in by some Studio exec suddenly worried about the lack of a feel-good ending and its potential effect on the bottom line.Now that, according to the pundits, we've comfortably moved on to post-industrial capitalism, the film also has a slightly nostalgic feel, as though we needed the historical distance to really analyze what happened during that period. Nevertheless, it's highly recommended - at least if you want to exercise your brain. Disregard the ending, and it's close to a perfect 10.

Ed Uyeshima 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.

andy_roy Just finished watching this movie, and it has left me quite confused. At one level, I enjoyed the movie immensely, for its powerful performances (OK - I have this terrible bias. No matter how much I try, I cannot completely dislike a De Niro movie) and the director's willingness to tread off the beaten path and look at issues that are real and disturbing, but which do not necessarily make the cash registers tingle. At another level, throughout watching the movie, I could not contain my disappointment at the inept treatment that is meted out by the script and the sketchy storyline.Was the director trying to document an epic human struggle, crafting out a modern day fairy tale, commenting on disturbing social issues or telling a plain love story? And this is where, I think, the movie fails. John Ford, Frank Capra and a host of others have made epic movies about human struggle; Bergman, Woody Allen and a host of art-house directors have delved on various social issues and several film makers from William Wyler to Stephen Spielberg have had their versions of modern day fairy tales. But none of them wanted to be everything in one movie.The first fifteen minutes of the movie make you think you are about to watch an intense, off-beat social document about burning issues like illiteracy, widowhood, old age, loneliness, teenage motherhood, poverty, mother-daughter relationship etc.In fact they are all hurled at you one after the other in the first reel itself. It's like the director saying - OK, this is CNN. First the headlines....now, let me see, have I missed anything. Oh of course, teenage motherhood. OK...here you go! OK, guys, now I'm done with the social issues bit, let's get to the love story part.OK, now - guys - how about some real fairy tale stuff. A rags-to-riches story that's so improbable. Guys, I have only ten minutes of shoot time left - quick, get him rich...hurry! It's here that I feel intellectually cheated.At one point in the movie, Robert De Niro asks Jane Fonda: why does it have to be all or nothing for you? That's the same question I'd like to ask the director.I started by saying it's an intriguing movie. Intriguing because, despite all this, despite the predictable ending and the lack of character-building (the waster brother-in-law shows up once and then disappears forever, for instance) and general lack of depth - you cannot really dislike it. The sheer poignancy and the earnestness of the lead characters (they were battling a sorry script along with poverty, loneliness etc. - full marks to them!) makes you forget your cinematic senses for a while and keep on watching.If I get a chance, I'll probably watch this movie again, and it's not because of Mr De Niro alone.Drawing a somewhat (though very different in theme and treatment) parallel - a much more powerful film about middle-aged post-marital flirtations starring De Niro in a similar 'soft' role was 'Falling in love' with Merryl Streep. However, while FIL delivers perfectly, on every count and remains a mini-classic (IMHO), this one comes nowhere close.It could easily have. Pity.

Ric-85 This film has a special place in my heart, as when I caught it the first time, I was teaching adult literacy. It rang very true to me and even an outstanding student I had at the time. There are scenes which make you gulp with sudden emotion, and those which even put a smile on your face through sheer identification with the characters and their situation. Excellent performances by Jane Fonda and Robert DeNiro that rank with their best work, a great turn by a young Martha Plimpton, an inspiring story line, and a haunting musical score makes for a most enjoyable and rewarding experience.