The Bridges of Madison County - Movie Review

When did I first see this movie? A long time ago surely. Watching it now was equally good, if not better - if at all it seemed a lot more layered and rich.Meryl Streep as Francesca, the lonely housewife whose dreams are slowly dying as she grows older and reconciled to a life in the farm with her husband, and Clint Eastwood as Robert Kincaid, the lonely photographer who has no moorings and goes where his heart takes him. How the two get along in those four days at her farm, where they meet accidentally when Kincaid comes to the small town to shoot the Bridges of Madison County, is what the story about. But with these two fine actors, the screen comes alive, their dreams and passions, wants and fears, life itself comes alive.

When Eastwood talks of 'the certainty that comes once in a lifetime', one wonders that it does appear so - even for people like them. Francesca chooses to stay back with her husband despite the offer that Kincaid makes, to go away with him, and always rues the fact that she did not go out and explore life, taste life a bit more. To have drunk to her heart's fill, if at least for once. To me, I'd have pushed the envelope a it and made her take off for a few days with Kincaid, perhaps exploring Greece. Just to feel alive again. It need not be a lifetime thing. That would have completed it for me. Where it is now, leaves one sad, for those unfulfilled dreams of hers.

Perhaps that is what we all do. Fit into the shapes that the world provides us and crib about the pain. We all do need to breathe, one way or another, and we must find our ways of breathing. And we must do that or we'll slowly die inside. Robert Kincaid only represents hope, not an extra marital affair, perhaps even adventure. And a bonus could be of a love that is different from her husband's. How her story impacts the lives of her children and frees them from their own burdens of fitting the template is nicely woven into it all. Wonderful stuff.