The Bridges of Madison County

And it's Streep's masterpiece of cinema.....Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion (2006) is a good film, with a great Streep performance....do they turn up on very many lists of favorite films.....It's also useful to consider the near miracle that this movie is.....Eastwood is arguably the greatest director Streep ever had.... ... Full Review

And it's probably the sweetest film he's made, too....if you will, and as such it's probably the gentlest film Eastwood has ever made.....Instead, we get clear, well-focused medium shots, a few close-ups, and a simple jazz-inflected score by Lennie Niehaus.....he's largely content to point his camera in the right direction.... ... Full Review

Which is probably what this lousy, tedious movie deserved. Bridges mistakes extended character development for good character development. Well, maybe I can gripe a little, if just because we expect more from two such notable actors. ... Full Review

The flashfowards are mercifully brief and easy to forgive since the rest of The Bridges of Madison County is so good. Unlike a more male picture, the script never vilifies the absent spouse. ... Full Review

For the final problem that besets "The Bridges of Madison County," the problem that no amount of talent can make go away, is that Robert Kincaid is about as real a person as Little Lord Fauntleroy, a wish-fulfillment cartoon of masculinity whose success as a fantasy figure led directly to the book's enormous financial success but creates believability problems when transferred to the screen. ... Full Review

As director, Eastwood has decided to go for cinematic poetry, and occasionally he manages to achieve just that. One of the weakest links is the framing story. But the actors (Victor Slezak and Annie Corley) seem stiff and their scenes awkward. ... Full Review

they , along with the audience, can't help becoming absorbed in the story of the great, utterly unexpected passion of this woman's life.....sex scenes, if anything, err on the side of discretion..... ... Full Review

It's not the ending that makes The Bridges of Madison County stupid: it's the middle. Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood) rolls into the Johnson's tiny Iowa town to photograph the bridges of Madison County when Francesca's husband and children are conveniently away at the state fair. ... Full Review

THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY ($40) is one of Clint Eastwoods finest accomplishments as a director. THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY is a beautiful and sensitive film, which most will find to be a complete antithesis to his action oriented Dirty Harry films or his westerns. ... Full Review

The two fall in love while Francesca's husband and children are away at a county fair, but the story's passion and lasting appeal derive from their... In any case, Clint Eastwood was an unusual and (as it turned out) perceptive choice to direct and costar in this lush adaptation of Robert James Waller's phenomenally bestselling novel. ... Full Review