The Bridges of Madison County (1995)

When Francesca Johnson passes away, her grown children are puzzled to learn that she wishes to be cremated and her ashes scattered from a local bridge rather than being buried next to her husband. Their puzzlement turns to surprise and shock when they read their mother's secret journals and read about an affair she had had many years ago with a photographer who came to the area for a few days.

I had seen this film many years ago in the cinema when it came out and had only average memories of it. With it coming onto TV recently, I wasn't sure if I'd bother because I had the idea in my head that this was a rubbish weepy but decided to go for it anyway. I am glad that I do not just make assumptions about films based on genre because my memory had tricked me in regards this film and in fact it was surprisingly good. I'm not generally a weepy fan but this is not what you think a weepy will be. Reading the plot summary and watching the film itself, it is clear how easily this could have fallen into sweeping sentiment and unbearable mush and it is to Eastwood's credit that it never does. Even as the plot sees the lovers falling into idealised romance, the film never does and it is the cool, calm direction that keeps it from being this way. Some will see this as 'excusing' the affair but I don't think it does – affairs happen because the grass is greener and that is just what this film does; it seems romantic and idyllic but that's because it is meant to be. I'm the last person to try and defend having affairs but I don't think that this film did this but I can understand why people would dislike it for doing this.

Without the mush, what is left is a film that is refreshingly free of sentiment and is able to deliver a grown up romance that is genuinely touching. This is seen in the honest chemistry between Francesca and Robert; sometimes things like this happen – two people just click, nothing has to be massively wrong in the relationship for it to happen. The film avoids easy shots (like making the husband be a real idiot) and just tries to show us why these two fell for one another so quickly. It isn't perfect of course and it is still a weepy of sorts – some of the dialogue is a bit self-consciously 'deep' for my liking but generally it was an adult telling of an adult romance – no corny ending, no sweeping score or clichéd effort to pump the audience for sentiment, instead I found it genuine and, as cold hearted a b*stard as I am, I was moved by the film.

I am a fan of Clint Eastwood and this film was a real pleasant surprise as it showed how able he is as a director and performer. I have already praised his work as director but he also turns in an unshowy and natural performance in the lead. Streep has never totally won me over and I often felt that doing an accent is not the same as giving a performance. Here her accent put me off at first but generally she is good and shows suitable restraint in depicting her character. She suffers a bit from having to deliver a narration that occasionally contains sentimental dialogue but she does well despite this. The support cast is OK but really contributions from Corley and Slezak are no more than distractions from the main show which is a collection of natural scenes between the two leads and no one else.

Overall, I consider this film a reason to not just watch any specific genre of movie and reject films simply because 'those aren't my type of things'. I was pleasantly surprised by a fil

Fmovies: I think this movie of one of the best movies I have ever seen. Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood really did a great job in this movie. for him to come in and change her life in just four days is amazing. To fall in love with some one in just four days is just wonderful to me. I watch it on Starz, and it played everyday for a week and I watch it every day it came on. she was a strong lady to stay there and be unhappy for all of those years. It is simply a beautiful movie. I love the part when he was picking flowers for her and she told him that the flowers were poison and then she started to laugh, that was hilarious to me. Because just in the few minutes she had know him he brought out something in her something that has not been released. She was more herself in this movie.I would surely recommend this movie to some one else.

I've watched this movie yesterday evening and it had a great effect on me.In my opinion this movie is outstanding because it reflects an average life,which is then becoming a really extraordinary one,representing that everyone's life can change from one moment to the other.And I think this meaning tells something to everyone,because everyone has dreams that seem that one can't fulfill,but this story says the opposite,so that at any time can come an opportunity that you have to recognize and be brave enough not to release.Another thing is that you may have to live your whole life in only four days and you have to be able to live it so that after it you can say that you had a really wonderful life. My favorite part of the movie was when Robert was leaving and the two cars were staying at the lamps one behind the other...it was a very touching scene,I think. So to draw the conclusion:I can recommend to everyone to watch the movie THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY because after watching it you're getting an other state of mind,a better one,that doesn't allows you to give up hoping for a better life...

The Bridges of Madison County fmovies. I only managed about two pages of the book before feeling physically ill by the trite dialogue, heavy dependence on cliche and ham fisted, adolescent romance prose style. So a film of the book 'The Bridges of Madison County' did not fill me with joy and pleasureable anticpation.

Yet Clint Eastwood has waved a magic wand, and worked wonders on the lack lustre source material, by pairing it down to produce a beautiful, warm film with only one real flaw (more on that later)

The film's overwhelming main strength is the casting of Meryl Streep. As Francesca she dissolves into the role - at times her gestures and dialogue seem so natural and unforced it is as if Eastwood had installed a fly-on-the-wall camera into the house of a real Iowan housewife. She lifts the film - which does centre on themes which could appear trite in the wrong hands - to the level of profound piece of art. Her selflessness and devotion to her family, and tortured sense of divided loyalites are presented so powerfully, and so plausibly, that the final scene in the car at the end (those who've seen it will recall immediately what I mean) pulls at your emotions so hard you'd swear it was you who was making the decision. I defy anyone with a pulse not to shed copious amounts of tears at this point --- you would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved on some level by this great, great performance.

Clint Eastwood provides good, solid support in the sense that he doesn't overact, and allows Meryl to become the heart of the film. This is a wise decision - part of the terrible weakness of the book was its dependence upon the inane thoughts and ramblings of Robert Kincaid. The film is beautifully directed, beautifully photograhed and beautifully scored - the radio tunes and the non-diegetic Bridges Love theme really enhance the romantic, lush tone and mood of the film.

My only problem is with the misguided decision to cast Francesca's older children and flash back periodically to them reading through their Mother's journals. The acting in these parts is mediocre at best, and they detract from the elegance and poignant mastery of Meryl Streep's central performance. The ashes scene at the end is - I feel - necessary for closure, but the rest of the scenes featuring the chldren should have been scrapped. The Francesca and Robert sections stand alone and require no interruption - these other segments cheapen the mastery of Meryl.

Above all, this is a film which (on paper) can be dismissed as pure soap opera. But it transcends these potentially trite themes to make a universal story of love, selflessness, devotion and choice, that speaks eloquently to the viewer, no matter what your age or experience. It's a truly heartbreaking tale of transitory experience and the power of memory. It will make you think about your own life, and about your closest family members and relationships.

And its finest quality has to be the magic of Meryl Streep who proves, yet again, why she is uniquely the best actress we have ever had. As Clint Eastwood said about casting this role: 'I only made one phonecall'. He knew as you will too - no other actress could have brought so much depth, warmth, beauty, charisma and humanity to this character. As a humble film lover, it's all I can do to applaud her from the depths of my heart. Bravo, Queen Meryl!

On the page "The Bridges of Madison County" often read like a reject from Mills and Boon and yet it was tremendously popular. People who normally wouldn't read this sort of thing were not only reading it but quoting it. You could say that for some people it held the kind of camp appeal that bad books sometimes do for the so-called intelligentsia. Personally, I am inclined to think that its tale of middle-aged romance struck a cord. It may not have been well-written but many people recognized in its two central characters a reflection of themselves. It spoke of a great passion and a great loss; a "Brief Encounter" for the nineties. Still, it never quite seemed like a vehicle for Clint Eastwood; (once upon a time you might have envisaged Arthur Hiller doing it), yet here it is, larger than life on the big screen and utterly lovely, utterly heart-breaking.

Perhaps Eastwood chose to film it as a vehicle for himself. He wears the mantle of the ageing Lothario perfectly at an age when most romantic leads are played by much younger men, (or are simply non-existent), yet who blanched when Gary Cooper or Cary Grant were wooing Audrey Hepburn well into their old age. Admittedly Eastwood isn't entirely comfortable in this sort of role. He's not a versatile actor. His best performances have been as tortured losers or just old-fashioned tough guys but under his own direction he blossoms here. Of course, the 'romantic' in Eastwood has never been hard to find. You need look only to the scores he has composed. (He has written the main love theme here and his use of classic jazz standards by the likes of Dinah Washington and Johnny Hartman adds considerably to the film's beating heart).

What is remarkable is that essentially Eastwood's film is really something of a chamber piece for two players. A few other characters flit into the frame but for most of the time there is no one on screen but Eastwood and co-star Meryl Streep and this is one of Streep's great performances. As Francesca, the woman who finds in Eastwood's photographer Robert the one great passion in her life albeit briefly and at a time when the likelihood of such a thing happening was remote indeed, Streep is extraordinary. Sometimes Streep can overwhelm a project; her versatility doesn't always work in favour of lesser material. But here she seems to have tapped quite effortlessly, not just into the consciousness of her character, but into her very soul as well. And if that sounds cheesy, let me assure you it isn't. Cheesiness isn't in Streep's vocabulary, even if it is in mine! Perhaps Eastwood was able to discern in Robert James Waller's novel the seeds of a great love story or perhaps he just felt he could bring his artistry to bear on some unlikely source material. Whatever, it's paid off. On screen "The Bridges of Madison County" is a great love story; there won't be a dry eye in the house.

The book on which this film is based is a very thin volume, thin in every department. As a matter of fact I gave up after a few pages. The film is something else entirely. Meryl Streep plays an Italian living in rural America and she is out of this world. Her opening scenes at the breakfast table are staggeringly beautiful, it could have been a silent movie, we would've understood and live Francesca's story just by looking into Meryl's beautiful face. Every laugh, every move, every nuance is so Italian and so real that I went to look up her background to see if there was some Italian blood in her. Apparently not, but she reminded me of Anna Magnani and of my mother - she's Italian too, so I should know. Clint Eastwood's performance is tender, powerful and generous. I started going to the movies in the 70's and part of the fascination was to go and see movies with adults doing adult things, behaving and reacting to life the way adults do. "Five Easy Pieces" "Coming Home" "Sophie's Choice" and then the old great old ones from "Sullivan's Travels" to "All About Eve" As a side note I should inform the decision makers that on my second visit to the theater I took five kids with me, two 17 year old boys and three girls, 18, 16 and 16. They went back to see it a few days later with some of their contemporaries. The comment of one of the boys was: "It made me think of things I don't usually think about". He invited his mom to the movies to see "Bridges of Madison County" According to his mother, that was the first time ever, but, as it happens, not the last.