THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY
A film review by Heather Leick Leone
Copyright 1995 Heather Leick Leone
Yea verily, I did shed a tear.
Whether or not THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY becomes the next CASABLANCA of our generation is something else altogether.
Somehow, the story touched me more when it peeked back through the mementos and the hurt confusion of Francesca's children than when it opened up and gave us the four days which changed her life.
I don't mean to belittle the romance, although at first it did seem slightly ludicrous for this frumpy housewife to go lustfully goggle-eyed for this lone, over-the-hill photographer. But soon they caught me with their laughter and their human frailty, and I ceased to be embarrassed by their growing relationship. Except that's the thing--I can accept that they fell in love and that love fulfilled them and changed their lives, but to a cynic like me, four days just doesn't amount to a relationship.
So it turns each look/emotion/treasure thereafter into a plot device. Everything serves to make the loss more poignant, the regret more bittersweet. They succeed beautifully, mind you, but it still amounts to a plot device.
Clint Eastwood's style has slowed these past years; he tells stories without so much gunfire as introspection. I couldn't help but compare the gentle lover he'd become to the impatient one he had been in TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARAH, where he shucked (only) his gun before climbing on top of Shirley Maclaine in the tub. His one response to her request that he at least remove his hat was, "I haven't got time for that."
So there I was as the lights came up, with Meryl's beautiful new accent ringing in my ears and searching frantically for a tissue in my purse, listening to the row of ladies behind me bitch that the film was torture to watch. I don't know if it was because of the pace which refused to be rushed, the less than perfect spread of the bodies of the leads, or the nuances of the novel (which all the women behind me had obviously read) lacking in the film.
I haven't read the book and cannot speak for the translation. I only know that I found the whole of it endearing, even when my attention began to wander. What I took away was the desire to know my own parents and have my children know me. I took away a contentment in the knowledge that desire doesn't have to fade. I took away the idea that some moments ripen and become a touchstone which gets us through the rest.
A classic film? Probably not. Some people are going to be disappointed. A few might even hate it. I wasn't. I didn't.
-- Heather Leick Leone (heather@economic.mess.cs.cmu.edu)
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews