The Bridges of Madison County

National Catholic Reporter, July 14, 1995 by Joseph Cunneen

"Better than the novel" is a fair capsule review of "The Bridges of Madison County." Screenwriter Richard LaGravenese was encouraged to cut most of the pretentious fat from Robert James Waller's bestseller, but this time there is no fairy-tale core to reinvent. Clint Eastwood exercises commendable directorial restraint and Meryl Streep deserves an Oscar nomination for her performance as Francesca, the Italian-born Iowa farm wife who is the center of the story. But whey did these two classy professionals bother?

Inevitably, the movie, like the novel, exploits the lack of fulfillment that many women must feel as their children become teenagers and life seems to close in on them. It opens with the reading of Francesca's will to her two grown-up children, and their gradual awareness that their mother wishes to reveal something about her life that they had not previously suspected.

This helps build audience curiosity even before we meet Francesca, but ultimately proves an awkward device. The flashbacks that make up most of the movie are periodically interrupted by returns to the present, in which son and daughter are seen absorbing various stages of the news, ultimately beginning to reshape their lives in the light of what they have learned.

Nevertheless, many will feel they have gotten their money's worth just watching Streep, who seems stockier and more sensuous than in earlier roles as she sets the table for her family, sighs as her daughter switches the radio from the opera she had on to pop, and sits unnoticed as the others eat. Her husband, about to take the children to the state fair, seems like a decent man who means it when he says he'll miss her. After seeing this movie, won't all of us dull husbands be nervous about going away for the weekend?

Even before Robert Kincaid (Eastwood) shows up, asking for directions to one of the covered bridges he's supposed to photograph for a National Geographic story, Streep conveys the oppressiveness of the heat and a vague sense of longing. Kincaid smiles at Francesca, notices her, extracts her story--a young woman from Bari, Italy, who finds herself in Iowa, and at an age when she wonders what happened to her dreams.

Fortunately, she isn't asked to spell out those dreams; what has caught her attention is how free Kincaid's life is, that he's even been to Bari, getting off the train to stop just because it seemed beautiful.

The movie takes its time, which is just as well, because it's got four days to fill while Francesca's husband is away, and the basic direction of its limited action is clear by the time she walks across the bridge and laughs nervously when Kincaid presents her with flowers he's just picked. Soon Francesca is inviting him back to her house for supper, and Kincaid exhibits the new male sensitivity by quoting Yeats and peeling carrots.

Eastwood eventually has to say things like, "This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime," but lots of people are going to find this a classy kind of affair, since one can shed a tear over what might have been even while knowing from the start that Francesca lived up to her domestic responsibilities until death.

The truth is that Streep was so good I almost believed in it, too, and recommend the dance scene between her and Eastwood to kindle the old spark. The trouble is that the whole flashback of "four memorable days" is presented as the contents of Francesca's diary, as if she were to blame for writing Waller's novel.