The Bridges of Madison County (film) has a 66 out of 100 rating, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". According to Janet Maslin, "Clint Eastwood, director and alchemist, has transformed "The Bridges of Madison County" into something bearable—no, something even better. Limited by the vapidity of this material while he trims its excesses with the requisite machete, Mr. Eastwood locates a moving, elegiac love story at the heart of Mr. Waller's self-congratulatory overkill. The movie has leanness and surprising decency, and Meryl Streep has her best role in years. Looking sturdy and voluptuous in her plain housedress (the year is 1965), Ms. Streep rises
The Bridges of Madison County a true story, but it is in fact entirely fictional. The novel is one of the bestselling books of the 20th century, with 60 million copies sold worldwide. It has also been adapted into a feature film in 1995 and a musical in 2013. Without expecting to, Robert James Waller conceived of "The Bridges of Madison County" in the early 1990s. On leave from his teaching job at the University of Northern Iowa, Waller was photographing the Mississippi River with a friend when he decided to photograph Madison County, Iowa's, covered bridges. This event, alongside a song Waller wrote years