The Bridges of Madison County. - movie reviews

Christian Century, July 5, 1995 by James M. Wall

Of course, families that stick together don't always have an easy time of it. The Bridges of Madison County, based on Robert James Waller's much-maligned but enormously popular novel, focuses on a four-day affair between an Iowa farmer's wife and a traveling National Geographic photographer.

The story is told as a flashback: a family gathers for the funeral of Francesca, an Italian immigrant who married as a war bride. She has left her personal journal to explain why she wants to be cremated and her ashes thrown from one of the local covered bridges. In reading the journal her two adult children discover that when they were teenagers their mother (played with just the right Italian accent by Meryl Streep) had a love affair with Robert (Clint Eastwood) which could have led her to a glamorous life away from an Iowa farm. They also learn why their mother chose to remain with her family. (The affair is told from Francesca's perspective--a vast improvement over the novel, which is a poorly written male fantasy.)

A film that focuses on the happiness of a four-day affair would seem to be anything but family-friendly, but Francesca's decision to remain with her family emerges as the central theme. "I could not do that to my husband," she tells Robert. She considers the crippling impact her leaving would have on her husband and the two children, and chooses to remain on the farm and with her family.

Some critics have complained that the film condones adultery and fails to consider the impact the affair might have had on Francesca's husband. But The Bridges of Madison County is not a documentary of a marriage, and it is not designed to debate adultery.

Bridges takes a realistic premise--an affair happened--and then considers what the responsibility of the wife and mother is to her husband and her children. Francesca wants her children to know that she did the right thing by not leaving them. She also wants them to know that no matter how tempting it may be to turn away from a boring marriage, her life testifies to the value of persisting. It's not necessary for a film to emphasize traditional images of the family for it to affirm the responsibilities and steadiness of family life, or to show that family is still the bond that matters.