We've curated a list of lesser-known films to help you explore the space-time continuum from the comfort of your couch.
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Title: The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Clint Eastwood | ... | Robert Kincaid | |
| Meryl Streep | ... | Francesca Johnson | |
| Annie Corley | ... | Carolyn Johnson | |
| Victor Slezak | ... | Michael Johnson | |
| Jim Haynie | ... | Richard Johnson | |
| Sarah Zahn | ... | Young Carolyn (as Sarah Kathryn Schmitt) | |
| Christopher Kroon | ... | Young Michael | |
| Phyllis Lyons | ... | Betty | |
| Debra Monk | ... | Madge | |
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Richard Lage | ... | Lawyer Peterson |
| Michelle Benes | ... | Lucy Redfield | |
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Alison Wiegert | ... | Child #1 |
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Brandon Bobst | ... | Child #2 |
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Pearl Faessler | ... | Wife |
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R.E. 'Stick' Faessler | ... | Husband |
The path of Francesca Johnson's (Meryl Streep's) future seems destined when an unexpected fork in the road causes her to question everything she had come to expect from life. While her husband and children are away at the Illinois State Fair in the summer of 1965, Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood) happens to turn into the Johnson farm and asks Francesca for directions to Roseman Bridge. Francesca later learns that he was in Iowa on assignment from National Geographic Magazine. She is reluctant seeing that he's a complete stranger, and then she agrees to show him to the bridges and gradually she talks about her life from being a war-bride from Italy which sets the pace for this bittersweet and all-too-brief romance of her life. Through the pain of separation from her secret love and the stark isolation she feels as the details of her life consume her, she writes her thoughts of the four-day love affair which took up three journals. The journals are found by her children after the lawyer ... Written by Mark Fleetwood <mfleetwo@mail.coin.missouri.edu>
The book on which this film is based is a very thin volume, thin in every department. As a matter of fact I gave up after a few pages. The film is something else entirely. Meryl Streep plays an Italian living in rural America and she is out of this world. Her opening scenes at the breakfast table are staggeringly beautiful, it could have been a silent movie, we would've understood and live Francesca's story just by looking into Meryl's beautiful face. Every laugh, every move, every nuance is so Italian and so real that I went to look up her background to see if there was some Italian blood in her. Apparently not, but she reminded me of Anna Magnani and of my mother - she's Italian too, so I should know. Clint Eastwood's performance is tender, powerful and generous. I started going to the movies in the 70's and part of the fascination was to go and see movies with adults doing adult things, behaving and reacting to life the way adults do. "Five Easy Pieces" "Coming Home" "Sophie's Choice" and then the old great old ones from "Sullivan's Travels" to "All About Eve" As a side note I should inform the decision makers that on my second visit to the theater I took five kids with me, two 17 year old boys and three girls, 18, 16 and 16. They went back to see it a few days later with some of their contemporaries. The comment of one of the boys was: "It made me think of things I don't usually think about". He invited his mom to the movies to see "Bridges of Madison County" According to his mother, that was the first time ever, but, as it happens, not the last.