THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (1995)

The Bridges of Madison County, Clint Eastwood’s 1995 romantic drama based on Robert James Waller’s best-selling novel of the same name, purports to depict an entire life’s worth of emotions across a film that largely takes place over just four days. To say that it honestly feels as if Eastwood has crafted a work that feels that lengthy could be a scathing insult or high praise. In this case, both are somewhat applicable.

Italian war bride Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep) lives a life of quiet desperation on a farm in Iowa with her husband Richard (Jim Haynie) and children Carolyn (Annie Corley as the adult Carolyn, with Sarah Kathryn Schmitt as the younger version) and Michael (Victor Slezak and Christopher Kroon). It is here that she encounters National Geographic photojournalist Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood), who happens upon her home on his way towards Roseman Covered Bridge. Since Francesca has nothing to do given that her family has gone to a state fair for a few days (a relished opportunity for isolation given her passionless, unfulfilling home life), she offers to accompany him there. This kick-starts a four-day love affair that will throw both characters’ notions of passion, love, and life’s purpose into question.

While Bridges of Madison County never attempts to mask its sentimental qualities, the end result is surprisingly lacking in schmaltz. This is achieved through incredibly slow pacing, where scenes persist for what feels like 20 minutes at a time, during which very little action takes place. Mostly confined to the kitchen in Francesca’s home, she and Robert find that their cordial relationship doesn’t just border on sexual and romantic feelings, but that their passion runs so deep that it causes them to question everything they have come to expect from life itself. These haunting ruminations lead to some startling and open-hearted reflecting, with the pair rarely holding back on conveying exactly what they are feeling at any given moment. The dialogue in screenwriter Richard LaGravenese’s script is often earnest and moving, but the most appreciable quality here is how respectfully it approaches these very different characters and their contrasting lifestyles and perspectives.

While Francesca pines for a life more adventurous, ambitious, and rewarding than what she has made of hers, Robert seems mostly satisfied with his roaming lifestyle, yet even this has its drawbacks. The pair will have their values tested, whether that is Francesca breaking her commitments to her husband through infidelity, or Robert questioning whether he is willing to give up his lifestyle to go steady with a woman he hardly knows. As a director, Eastwood knows to let these scenes breathe, with little use for mise-en-scène in this film’s plain visual language. In fact, the plainness of these surroundings only amplifies its emotional bedrock. After all, Francesca’s life has been sapped of joy and passion for years by this point, so it seems only fair that even when she experiences those emotions swelling up within her, her environment is just as non-descript and uneventful as ever. Given that so much of the film takes place indoors, it often unfolds as gradually — and with a similar degree of intimacy — as a play, an unexpected yet welcome change of pace from Eastwood’s usual filmmaking inclinations.

Another added bonus of this plain visual style is how much emphasis it places on its lead actors, who are excellent. Streep is the shining talent here, with LaGravenese doing well to recognise that it is Francesca’s perspective that represents this story’s beating heart. The pained acceptance of a life that would be idyllic to many, but produces such great misery within her, is so wonderfully articulated by the veteran actress that watching Francesca in motion is like seeing Andrew Wyeth’s painting ‘Christina’s World’ brought to life, the seemingly endless fields around her property feeling like a smothering blanket that can never be shorn. This film also wouldn’t be nearly so powerful without Steven Spielberg’s suggestion to frame the story through Francesca’s adult children stumbling across her belongings after she has passed away, kick-starting a beautiful, tragic, and occasionally uninspired narrative.

Despite how effective this film’s slow pacing and lack of stylisation is, it also leads to some noticeable downgrades in quality. It never really makes sense that a movie revolving around a woman falling in love with a photojournalist is so uninterested in the beauty of nature, with no substantial attempt to convey how gorgeous these landscapes are, in the same way that the senses are not evoked to a meaningful degree. The poetic flourish that filmmakers like Terrence Malick bring to their works are needed here in short bursts to break up the almost rote depictions of this blossoming romance (visually speaking, at least). The stylisation of a director like Luca Guadagnino, who generally shoots his movies conventionally, but injects surprising moments of sensitivity and subjectivity that translate the unspeakable nature of perspective and feeling on a visual level, is much needed here.

This is especially true when one considers the sheer length of almost every scene. Bridges of Madison County’s long, drawn-out conversations might do an excellent job of condensing a full-bodied relationship into a time span of just a few days (and a film of just two hours), but the downside of this is that minutes at a time can go by without a substantial or emotive line of dialogue.

Even with all this dialogue, just what exactly Francesca and Robert’s relationship consisted of can never truly be understood. Was it a passion-filled fling that would have only led to disappointment down the road? Were the pair really soulmates? Or were they simply what the other person desperately needed as a reminder that their chosen lifestyles needed altering? It doesn’t seem that Robert or Francesca ever truly recognise how shallow or deep their love was, but that’s perfect. It’s the lingering dream world of their love affair that has dominated their thoughts for years, just like Newland Archer’s love affair gradually became just as much of a fantasy as a memory in Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence (1993).

The difference between both films is that The Age of Innocence, aside from a frivolous opening section that is a necessary indictment of the superficial lives of its upper-class characters, is consistently absorbing, with seemingly endless notes of tragedy and romance on display to tug at the heartstrings. By structuring The Bridges of Madison County through an adult Michael and Carolyn reminiscing on their mother and re-evaluating who she was in light of her affair with Robert, Eastwood and LaGravenese have formed something just as beautiful and heartfelt as Scorsese and co-screenwriter Jay Cocks achieved. But though the story proper has similar aspirations, its scenes consistently meander, where not even the inimitable Streep can stop these interactions from straying from their purpose. And with a denouement that reinforces some of the film’s more cheesy elements, The Bridges of Madison County might be effective at conveying this central dynamic’s tragic depths, but that doesn’t mean it convincingly charts the ebb and flow of their relationship.

USA | 1995 | 134 MINUTES | 1:85.1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Clint Eastwood.
writer: Richard LaGravenese.
starring: Meryl Streep, Clint Eastwood, Annie Corley, Victor Slezak, Jim Haynie, Sarah Kathryn Schmitt & Christopher Kroon.