5/5 another word on this great film
  by cns (Washington DC)
So many people have talked about the two principles, and not only the actors' great performances, but the choices the two main characers make, that no more needs to be said about that. For me, a huge portion of the poignance of this film is the fact that their story is framed by the story of her two children, and how they grow from learning about their mother. The scene at the end where they're at the bridge with her ashes is sure to make you cry, if you haven't already. Her honesty with them after her death is her final gift to them, as was her decision to stay, and their willingness at the end to honor her wish is their final gift to her. It's quite beautiful, and redeems her sacrifice. It's what they should mean when they call something an "adult" film. This is truly an adult film.

5/5 Once in every life....someone comes along
  by Muzzlehatch (the walls of Gormenghast)
Closeup on a mailbox: Mr. and Mrs. Richard Johnson. Behind it, a dusty road leading through green fields, a minivan coming towards the camera and a pan over towards an isolated farmhouse. It's the present, and Michael and Carolyn have come to settle some issues regarding their mother's estate. It seems that their mother wanted her ashes scattered from a nearby covered bridge, which startles her two grown kids, particularly the seemingly very conservative and religious Michael. Turns out that Francesca had her reasons, as they find out when they open her cedar chest and turn to the diaries contained within...

Late summer 1965, and Francesca, an Iowa housewife in her mid-40s is seeing her husband and kids off to the Illinois State Fair. They'll be gone for 5 days and she'll have little to do but be bored in a different way than she usually is, until the arrival the next morning of a lost National Geographic photographer, Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood). Kincaid is on assignment to photograph the covered bridges that the county is famed for, and Francesca tries to tell him the way to the Roseman bridge but quickly decides to show him the way personally instead. As they drive towards the bridge and make small talk, they seem uneasy at first - but when Robert mentions Francesca's accent, and she finds that he has visited the town where she grew up in Italy, something starts to click. He reaches for a cigarette from the glove compartment and brushes her leg...later he picks flowers for her....they have the same favorite radio station, playing blues and jazz. Francesca starts to see something special, exotic....Robert sees someone warm and real, centered but more than the simple housewife that she's let herself become.

So begins four days of falling in love, four days of uncertainty, secretive glances, shyness turning to boldness, feelings long-buried in both reawakened and examined by two people smart enough to know right away how problematic an affair can be, yet willing to cast aside the doubts and damn the consequences. For now. The brilliance of The Bridges of Madison County isn't in any kind of originality, and it isn't in the bits of Waller's strained prose that occasionally leech through LaGravenese's generally excellent screenplay; it isn't in Streep's accent, which I know some have problems with but which I barely even notice at this point; and it isn't in the framing story, which again has grown on me over time but is certainly not all that interesting itself. What makes the film magical is the chemistry, the feeling of absolute rightness between the two leads, and the slow building towards an inevitable yet still heartbreaking decision.

Clint Eastwood certainly must have seemed an odd choice to take on this film, which he co-produced and co-wrote the elegiac "Doe Eyes" theme for in addition to directing and starring - even to me, a big fan already at the time, it seemed odd. Robert Redford seemed to be everybody's idea of Kincaid, and Steven Spielberg got mentioned often as a possible director, but I doubt many people will have problems after they see the film. Eastwood's Robert is a sensitive guy, but he's not schmaltzy, a poetic man but not pretentious about it, and a man clearly as unsure about the concept of love and the kind of risk he puts himself into as the married Francesca. He's a traveler and a loner, but deep down there's something missing, something we can feel almost from the beginning, something seen in the long gaze out the window near the end, and as he stands in the rain, waiting and hoping, at the film's emotional climax. And Eastwood the director keeps things from getting out of hand sentimentally until the last half hour, when both he and the audience know it's time for the tears to flow.

But as good as Clint is - and this is surely one of his two or three best performances - Meryl Streep is just a marvel here. Overlook the accent - whether you like it or not, it really isn't terribly important here - and you see a less mannered, more natural performance than she's given anywhere else. She mentions a couple of times in the making-of piece that accompanies the film on DVD that she was uncertain at first of Eastwood's quick shooting style, but it does wonders for her, giving a spontaneity that she really needed for the role. So much of the film relies on us believing that these are two hesitant, uncertain people with a yearning that at first has no direction - it can't seem studied, and it doesn't. And for a film that is set mostly in a kitchen and around barn-like red covered bridges, there's an excitement and intensity that can't be matched in most romances shot under the Eiffel Tower or in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. The technical aspects - Jack N. Green's lovely September-October photography and the wonderful Eastwood-chosen musical mixture of Johnny Hartman and Dinah Washington, among others - are just about perfect as well.

What the film ultimately builds to - and much of it is on Streep's shoulders - is a powerful examination of regret and loss and a determination that there are no perfect choices in life, only choices that involve different kinds of sacrifices. The film doesn't comment on the rightness or wrongness of her adultery, but Francesca lets her kids know that whatever she's done, she's not going to beat herself up over it - and neither should they. At the end, we know that whatever choice she made would have been difficult, would have involved hurting herself and others; there's no easy answer, only a bit of hope for the next generation, as they at least have come to accept and understand, and Francesca's ashes scatter on the wind....

NOTE ON THE DVD: The transfer on this 2008 "special edition" DVD is very nice and the aspect ratio correct - really essential to this tightly-shot film. Good if a little over-effusive commentary by cinematographer Jack Green and editor Joel Cox and a nice little making-of featurette.

5/5 Love Story For All Time!!
  by Barbi Price (Trenton, GA USA)
The most wonderful love story ever to hit the screen in my opinion!! It has moving moments in every scene!! A must see!! Grab a kleenex!!

5/5 Good Buy
  by Marie Huddleston (USA)
This movie was a gift for my mother because she loved it so much. I watched it myself and found it to be a good movie involving two very superior actors and a deep message. Overall a must watch.

5/5 For Me, Better the second time around
  by Deb (Austin, Texas USA)
Growing up quite near The Bridges of Madison County, I found the book to be quite boring and the movie very laughable. In fact, I here publicly apologize to all the people crying in the theatre as I laughed out loud through out the entire movie.

Years later, due to a category in a Chick Flick book my daughter gave me, I purchased the DVD and watched it in the privacy of my own home.

With the second viewing I found the movie to be a beautiful story and quite entertaining. The first time, the decor, the characters, hit too close to home. For some reason I seemed to remember that Meryl Streep's character constantly using the "f" word. Now, growing up in the area, I found it hysterical that ANYONE could think a farm wife, in that era, no matter where she came from, would even know what that word meant!! As I said, now I have no idea where I came up with that after the first viewing.

Maybe I didn't like it the first time around because it did remind me too much of my home and my family. I had only been married a few years, no children at the time, and I am sure none of us want to consider our parent's having those kind of thoughts.

The second time I had been living in Texas longer than I had in Iowa, and have two grown children. Now I get it and see how it could be possible no matter where you live.

Truly this is a beautiful, endearing story of feelings I think we have all had at some time in our lives. SEE THIS MOVIE!! It is well worth it.