Critics reviews

The Bridges of Madison County capped off an impressive streak of films that saw Eastwood put numerous aspects of his persona under the microscope, from directorial tyranny in White Hunter, Black Heart to the fatalistic disgust with violence that imbues A Perfect World with palpable regret. Yet if The Bridges of Madison County is not the best of these films, it may nonetheless offer the most startling revisionism in the director's oeuvre.

Whatever the achievements of The Bridges of Madison County (and they aren't to be sneezed at), there's a strong temptation to credit Eastwood with resuscitating the star system, the Hollywood tearjerker, and classical mise en scene (as I've done in my own capsule review). Yet at best he's performing yeoman service on a so-so adaptation of a lousy novel, plunking his customary persona in the middle of it as if that were all it needed to achieve greatness.