Both the children are married and both are unhappy with their marriages and yet they’ve neither cheated on their spouses nor have they thought of a divorce.
The two other actors playing Francesca grown-up children do not help either, almost making it look as though two separate films of different caliber – the better one with Streep and Eastwood, of course, were spliced together.īridges of Madison County begins with Francesca’s children Caroline and Michael arriving at their recently deceased mother’s Iowa home for settlement of her estate. And while Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep, our Robert and Francesca, do try not to allow this film to slip into a silly melodrama, the clichéd material sometimes becomes overwhelming for the two. So the scenes are often plagued with ‘that moment when there’s momentarily silence after which a character speaks something big’ – it often is found just before a scene ends. And so, Bridges of Madison County does away with the pretty Hollywood ending and still, everything does end up well for everybody.Ī thoughtful message indeed, but what troubles is that Bridges of Madison County is that it often makes us feel as though we’re watching a typical lifetime film whose sole intent is to make big moral observations whenever and wherever possible. But the leap to a spiritual journey requires a renunciation from her adventure otherwise the love shared between Francesca and Robert would culminate in nothing more than a liaison. This adventure gradually becomes a spiritual journey for the unhappy housewife, gradually unraveling the mysteries of life and love.
How long her relationship could last with Robert didn’t matter to her then what mattered was that she could find pure happiness with this man, a state she hadn’t felt in years. She is anything but common, as Robert tells her in another scene, otherwise she wouldn’t have said those words Francesca fully knew what she was doing, yet she on her own accord went ahead.
It is an adventure for Francesca, who considers herself a common Iowan housewife without a liking for change. “Robert, I want you to come” Francesca says with an almost pleading tone over the telephone, thus initiating the four-day amour between her and Robert, a travelling photographer on a short trip to Iowa.
Summary: A decent film worth watching once for Eastwood and twice for Streep, provided one is willing to endure some contrived writing, middling supporting performances and weak framing device
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