Stanley & Iris (1990) on Netflix
Iris King, a widow with two children in Connecticut, meets Stanley Cox, a canteen cook who helps her after a purse snatching on a bus. She learns he cannot read.
- Netflix2.3/5
- IMDb6.4/109,549 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes29%
Trailer
Plot summary
Iris King has been grieving her husband for eight months. She works at a baked-goods factory in Connecticut, raises her children Kelly and Richard on a paycheck-to-paycheck budget, and learns that Kelly is pregnant, which strains the household further. On a bus, a thief snatches her purse, and Stanley Cox, a cook in the factory canteen, comes to her aid. A friendship grows. When Iris sees that Stanley cannot identify a medication, she realizes he is illiterate. She lets it slip to his boss, and the following day Stanley is dismissed, with food safety and the threat of lawsuits cited. He asks Iris to teach him to read, and she agrees.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Stanley & Iris (1990)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Local Vietnam War veterans picketed the production when it filmed in Waterbury, Connecticut, in the summer of 1988, protesting Jane Fonda's anti-war activities from a decade and a half earlier.
- The film was the last made by the trio of director Martin Ritt and screenwriters Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch: Ritt died ten months after its release, and Ravetch and Frank retired afterwards.
- Stanley & Iris was the last film Jane Fonda appeared in for 15 years; she did not return to the screen until 2005's Monster-in-Law.
