Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 3, 1995 TAG: 9506060042
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Nice corn. Well-acted corn. But corn, nonetheless.
Oh, it could've been worse. Writer-shaman Robert James Waller could've written the script and then we'd have been subjected to much mid-life, egocentric musing on his - whoops, I mean Robert Kincaid's - rippling manliness.
But Richard LaGravenese (``The Fisher King") wrote the script, and Clint Eastwood, who also directed the film, brings some welcome humility to the role of Kincaid, the National Geographic photographer who falls in love with an Italian-American Iowa farmwife.
At least a gazillion people have read this story by now. It's been lampooned in "Doonesbury" and made Waller a millionaire a couple of times over. But it wasn't particularly well-written (UNDERSTATEMENT!!!), and the dialogue wouldn't have made it out of an undergraduate fiction workshop.
Thank heaven for the additions and subtractions. Added: Francesca (Meryl Streep) and Robert actually go someplace and do something (besides the deed). And Streep - who pulls off a not-bad Italian accent - gives Francesca something like a personality, taking her down a few notches from sainthood-goddessness. There's even a little subplot about another Iowa farmwife who is ostracized for having an affair - and Francesca's friendship with her.
Subtracted: the overwrought tone of the original work, the efforts to make legend of a love story.
"Bridges" loses something in the translation, but people who loved the book won't be disappointed. As Francesca tells Robert, "It's just better this way."
The Bridges of Madison County
** 1/2
A Warner Bros release showing at the Tanglewood Mall Cinema and Salem Valley 8. Rated PG-13 for some nudity and profanity. 132 mins.
by CNB