The Bridges of Madison County

It feels incredibly unfair that books more worthy of great film adaptations are left squander in lackluster Oscar bait, while a trashy, sudsy novel gets the A-list screen treatment. The Bridges of Madison County didn’t deserve such a good movie, but it got one. With the unlikely choice of Clint Eastwood as producer, director and star, The Bridges of Madison County manages to steer clear of overtly sentimentalized schmaltz and becomes one of the best women’s pictures/weepies since the days of Bette Davis. But no matter how hard Eastwood and Meryl Streep (as an Italian housewife married to an American), even their magnetic screen charisma, talent and erotic charge can’t save the implausibility and silliness of the general thrust the storyline takes. But the emotional starkness and ability for the actors to turn literary sap into an elegiac love story is something truly wondrous to behold.