“I like individuality. It’s so lost these days. So much sameness. Everything is homogenized. I hate it. Whatever.” From that quote in the film’s opening moments, it’s evident that 93-year-old Iris Apfel has lost none of her spirit or style. She shines through in every frame of Albert Maysles’s intimate documentary, “Iris.” It’s so familiar a look at the nonagenarian’s life that – editorial rules or not – we’re tempted to call her by her first name throughout our review. She’s friendly with the camera and the man behind it, showing none of the distance one might expect from an icon with multiple rooms of her Park Avenue apartment devoted to her clothes and accessories collection that was large and distinct enough to merit its own exhibit at the Met.
It’s easy to take a look at the quirky subject of Maysles’s documentary and draw comparisons to the Beales, two of his earlier and most famous focuses in “Grey Gardens.” But Iris is nowhere near the eccentric that they were, despite having...
