Iris (2014)

(Netflix Streaming, September 2016) The world is filled with wonderful eccentrics, and so Iris takes us in the world of Iris Apfel, a New York City woman with her own sense of taste who achieved fame late in life as an iconoclast fashion icon. Iris comes across as highly likable, old enough to name-drop depression-era references from personal experience and free to indulge in whatever fancies without fear of what other people would say. Handled by documentarian Albert Maysles (who died barely a year after the film’s release), Iris tackles Iris’ personal history, her relationship with her husband (also deceased shortly after the film’s release) and her incredulous ascension as a NYC fashion icon decades after retirement. Fashionistas will love some of the film’s quotes (there’s something about the point of parties being dressing up for the parties that’s both funny and true) and the celebrity cameos aren’t bad at all. Thanks to the elderly Maysles’s sympathetic eye, It’s also a portrait in aging more-or-less gracefully, facing obstacles, knowing that time is limited and making the most out of it. Have a look at Iris, even if you don’t necessarily know Iris yet.