The Bridges of Madison County

About

Clint Eastwood's THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY is not about love and not about sex, but about an idea. The film opens with the information that two people once met and fell in love, but decided not to spend the rest of their lives together. The implication is: If they had acted on their desire, they would not have deserved such a love. Almost everybody knows the story by now. Robert James Waller's novel has been a huge best-seller. Its prose is not distinguished, but its story is compelling: he provides the fantasy of total eroticism within perfect virtue, elevating to a spiritual level the common fantasy in which a virile stranger materializes in the kitchen of a quiet housewife and takes her into his arms. (Roger Ebert)