The Bridges of Madison County **** (1995, Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep, Annie Corley) – Classic Movie Review 748

Get out a full bumper-sized box of tissues for star-director Clint Eastwood’s cute, bittersweet Sixties-set Brief Encounter-style 1995 romantic weepie The Bridges of Madison County. It is polished, posh and poignant, casting its spell and weaving its magic.

Eastwood forsakes his action fans to play Robert Kincaid, a travelling National Geographic magazine photographer, who turns up in Iowa and enjoys an all-too-brief idyllic love affair fling with married Italian ranch housewife Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep). Her husband and children are away at the Illinois state fair in the summer of 1965.

By chance, Kincaid decides to turn into the Johnson farm and ask Francesca for directions to Roseman Bridge. Reluctantly, as he is a complete stranger, she agrees to show him to the bridges and gradually reveals her life story from being a war-bride from Italy.

Director Clint gives himself the best part and the best lines, and makes the absolute most of them, but Meryl, trying out another of her accents, this time Italian, makes sweet music too.

Eastwood makes an exquisite thing of the direction, pacing a long, 135-minute film nicely and elegantly, Richard LaGravenese makes a polished job of the screenplay, adapting the 1992 novel by Robert James Waller, and Jack N Green does beautiful work on the cinematography. In a clear labour of love, Eastwood co-produces and works on the score too with Lennie Niehaus. If romance is your thing, this is a beautiful movie.

The farmhouse used in the film had been abandoned for more than 30 years and was completely restored by production designer Jeannine Oppewall and her art directors.

The Bridges of Madison County author Robert James Waller.

Author Robert James Waller died on 10 March 2017, aged 77. The Bridges of Madison County made him a multi-millionaire, and it was also turned into a Broadway musical. He wrote it in 11 days.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 748

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