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 (film) way to a chest where their mother left a letter, a series of diaries, photographs, old cameras and other mementos. They discovered that in 1965, their mother, an Italian war bride, had a four-day affair with Robert Kincaid, a travelling professional photographer who had come to Madison County, Iowa, to shoot a photographic essay for "National Geographic" on the covered bridges in the area. The affair took place while her husband and children were at the state fair in Illinois. The story in the diaries also reveals the impact the affair had on the lives of Francesca and Robert, since