‘This kind of certainty comes but just once in a lifetime...’
Clint Eastwood is a lot of things, but a romantic dreamer is not the first thing that comes to mind as a descriptor of the legendary actor/director. Grizzled? Yes. Misanthropic? Sometimes. Rough around the edges? Most definitely. The Bridges of Madison County offers us a different side of an icon and in doing so provides one of his finest roles…
Following the death of their elderly mother (Meryl Streep), siblings Michael (Victor Slezak) and Carolyn (Annie Corley) find a series of romantic letter exchanged between their mother and a man named Robert (Eastwood). The rest of the film is told in flashback as we see a burgeoning relationship from its tentative beginnings to its blossom and eventual conclusion.
Longing is a powerful emotion. Perhaps the most powerful there is after nostalgia (which, after all, is a kind of longing). How many millions of people are happy with their lives? Truly happy? Streep’s character Francesca is not unhappy, but she’s not happy either. She’s coasting. Settling. Making do. A situation that many people find themselves in. It takes a chance encounter with an old romantic to force Francesca to realise that maybe there could be something else. Something more.
Streep was Oscar nominated for her performance, and she crafts a whole world out of nothing here, bringing Francesca completely to life. Streep makes you believe that this woman was a real person out living her life somewhere. But for my money, this is also Eastwood’s finest performance. I’ve never seen him with a twinkle in his eye like he has here, all soft edges and knowing smiles. It’s disarming and charming and, as with Streep, utterly lived in and authentic. His direction is typically unshowy, but also beautiful, autumn rendered as cinema, lots of yellows and oranges, a sunset distilled into a two hour movie. Eastwood’s regular musical collaborator Lennie Niehaus is also on top form, providing a score as lush and romantic as the images it is set to.
The Bridges of Madison County stopped me in my tracks. They really truly don’t make them like this anymore. It’s sentiment without melodrama. Nostalgia without schmaltz. Put simply, it’s a beautiful story, told with heart and skill, signifying everything. I loved it.
