Details
Movie Description
Jane Fonda and Robert DeNiro star in this working class drama as Stanley and Iris, who are both employees at the same New England bakery. The two--who have never met even though they work together--come together when Stanley bumps into Iris on the street right after her purse is stolen. He offers to walk her home, and the two soon learn that they have much more in common than just their place of work; they both have tremendously trying personal lives. However, when Iris learns that Stanley is illiterate, she inadvertently gets him fired from his job, prompting Stanley, who is coming to grips with his handicap for the first time, to ask Iris if she will help him learn to read. In order to convey a sense of what being illiterate is like, director Martin Ritt infuses the film with a tremendous feeling for its locale, a small New England town, emphasizing Stanley's feeling of isolation as he goes about his daily business without being able to read. Of course, DeNiro's amazing performance as Stanley helps too, and, as Iris, Fonda plays wonderfully against him, making the film a great romance as well as a great drama.
Synopsis
When her husband dies, Iris is left to care for her children alone. Somehow, in the face of her tremendous grief and isolation, she must lay the foundation for a new life. Money problems soon force her to take a tedious, menial job in a local bakery. Then along comes Stanley.
Film Notes
Theatrical release: February 9, 1990.
Filmed on location in Toronto, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Adapted from the British novel UNION STREET which followed the lives of seven women in an English industrial town; Iris is based on one of the characters. There is no romance in the book, but one of the female protagonists has an illiterate husband, and the filmmakers developed that premise.
Lee Harmon did Jane Fonda's makeup; Kathy Lee Blondell-Hart did her hair. Robert De Niro's makeup and hair done by Steve Atha.
Industry Reviews
"...Fonda has rarely been this relaxed on screen....[She] positively shines..."
USA Today - Mike Clark (02/09/1990)
Quotations
"You want to know? You're in a city. You can't read the street signs. You're lost... you can't get on a bus, you can't read where it's going, you have to let it go by, you let the next one go by and the next one... you stand there... you turn into stone...." -- Stanley Cox (Robert De Niro)
"You know what I think... I think you and me are getting to be friends." -- Iris King (Jane Fonda)
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