Variety
Given the intelligent restraint of the treatment, this is about as fine an adaptation of this material as one could hope for...
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The Bridges of Madison County
Clint Eastwood directs and co-stars in this melancholy, rural American romance adapted from the best-selling novel by Robert James Waller. Co-starring Meryl Streep, who received a 1996 Academy Award Best Actress nomination for her performance.
Robert Kincaid (Eastwood), a globetrotting National Geographic photographer, journeys to Madison County in 1965 to shoot its lovely covered bridges. Upon his arrival, he stops by an old farmhouse to ask directions, whereupon he encounters housewife Francesca Johnson (Streep) whose spouse and two children are out of town. Thus begins their four-day affair, a liaison that fundamentally changes them both. Later Francesca chronicles the affair in a diary which her flabbergasted grown children come to read after her passing, gaining them a greater understanding of their mother and of themselves.
1995Rating: M, Low level coarse language135 minsUSA
DramaRomance
- Director:
- Clint Eastwood ('Letters From Iwo Jima', 'Gran Torino', 'Mystic River')
- Writer:
- Richard LaGravenese
- Cast:
- Clint EastwoodMeryl StreepAnnie CorleyVictor SlezakJim HaynieSarah Kathryn SchmittChristopher KroonPhyllis LyonsDebra Monk
The Bridges of Madison County / Reviews
Time Out
Immaculately performed, and assembled with wit and sensitivity, this is one of the most satisfying weepies in years.
Full reviewTime Magazine
Madison County is Eastwood's gift to women: to Francesca, to all the girls he's loved before -- and to Streep, who alchemizes literary mawkishness into intelligent movie passion.
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The New York Times
Limited by the vapidity of this material while he trims its excesses with the requisite machete, Mr. Eastwood locates a moving, elegiac love story at the heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill.
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Roger Ebert
I've seen the movie twice now and was even more involved the second time, because I was able to pay more attention to the nuances of voice and gesture.
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Los Angeles Times
Screenwriter LaGravenese ought to get the Croix de Guerre for doing battle with Waller's fatuous prose and paring Bridges down to its most appealing fantasy romance essence.
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