MR. & MRS. BRIDGE
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1990 Frank Maloney
MR. & MRS. BRIDGE is adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from two novels by Evan S. Connell, MRS. BRIDGE (1959) and MR. BRIDGE (1969); the film is produced and directed by the team of Merchant-Ivory that earlier brought us ROOM WITH A VIEW, MAURICE, and others.
The artistic goal and challenge is to find what is interesting, dramatic, and human in the smug, comfortable country-club lives (in this case, Kansas City-Mission Hills, 1930's and early 1940's).
The movie consists of a series episodes, almost vignettes, not quite but nearly free-standing. We move from the rigid, glacial walls the characters present us to see them as real people with their own pains and tragedies. There is much comedy here and some sadness. If we watch them and only say, "what's the problem? they have everything they need" we are being very much like some of the characters themselves. Part of their tragedy is often an inability to sympathize, to see beyond their own narrow lives. In slowly opening up the characters to us, the movie is entirely successful.
Much of the success is probably Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's script, which moves by easy degrees like a new friendship. The opening introductions, the growing knowledge of the other person's personality and quirks and faults, the acceptance, the caring, the concern and involvement.
Much of the success has to go to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, who have been making movies together off and on for 35 years more or less. Honestly, I have never seen them act better. It will be the subject of some discussion over who does the better job. Woodward's performance is a little easier to appreciate, her character is more lovable and emotional; she does wonderful things communicating strength and fragility, confusion and wisdom. Newman's character is inarticulate, superficially unloving, under control, unemotional, and underneath as seething and emotional as any of us; making that characterization live is a major achievement for an actor and Newman delivers.
Of course, the title characters are not the only ones. The supporting performances were uniformly excellent. I especially liked the juicy job of the very "advanced" psychiatrist, who lives in a moderniste house with African sculpture, wears loud waistcoats and a beard, and seems always to be enjoying enormously a cigar and a private joke. He is played by the same actor who played the country vicar in ROOM WITH A VIEW and who romped so enthusiastically in the nude bathing scene, Simon Callow. I can also mention with pleasure the performance of Blythe Danner, Mrs. Bridge's best and unhappy friend.
Like all of Merchant-Ivory's period pieces, the look of this movie is wonderful, rich, convincing, and detailed.
I wholeheartedly recommend MR. & MRS. BRIDGE to all adults.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
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