The Bridges Of Madison County 1995

Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune: Eastwood's Bridges has the energy and spontaneity of a picture that was shot quickly. And that serves the material well, because it removes the solemnity that could stiffle a modern classic. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Screenwriter LaGravenese ought to get the Croix de Guerre for doing battle with Waller's fatuous prose and paring Bridges down to its most appealing fantasy romance essence. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: The result, if rather thin and certainly far from a masterpiece, is nevertheless quite lovely. This affecting little film is easily one of Eastwood's best efforts as a director. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Bridges is an admirable achievement, one that probably does more to reposition its maker as someone who can carry a movie without carrying a gun than as the director/star of a Love Story for the Loving Care set. Read more

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: With Eastwood as Kincaid and Meryl Streep as Francesca, this carefully observant love story turns Waller's pop-lit passion into screen art. Read more

Janet Maslin, New York Times: Limited by the vapidity of this material while he trims its excesses with the requisite machete, Mr. Eastwood locates a moving, elegiac love story at the heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Streep makes her character known in no time flat. Intelligence, humor, blocked ambition, self-irony -- they're all contained in Francesca's quick response when Robert asks if she has any plans for the afternoon. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Despite all his craft and sincerity, [Eastwood] and screenwriter Richard LaGravenese can't quite turn Robert James Waller's cardboard best-seller into flesh and bone. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood, as Waller's tenderly plaintive heartland lovers, are so visually and spiritually right they seem to have walked right off the page. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: The two leads' sly comic rhythm is miles removed from the book's failing solemnity. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The Bridges of Madison County is a beautiful film, not only in the way it was photographed, but for the manner through which the characters are revealed to us. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I've seen the movie twice now and was even more involved the second time, because I was able to pay more attention to the nuances of voice and gesture. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: What the movie does that the book couldn't do is tap into the poignancy that comes of seeing two stars who used to be young and beautiful suddenly looking very mortal. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Madison County is Eastwood's gift to women: to Francesca, to all the girls he's loved before -- and to Streep, who alchemizes literary mawkishness into intelligent movie passion. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Immaculately performed, and assembled with wit and sensitivity, this is one of the most satisfying weepies in years. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Given the intelligent restraint of the treatment, this is about as fine an adaptation of this material as one could hope for... Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: What follows is, essentially, gothic-romantic bunk. But there's a nicely stylized, below-the-surface courtship between the performers. They make you forget that, at their very core, they are hackneyed creations. Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: Bridges is an old-fashioned "women's film" that pits the heroine's romantic urges against her matriarchal duties. In fact, the film is at its dramatic best when Francesca is finally obliged, like Sophie, to make her choice. Read more