There are many lessons to be learned from The Bridges of Madison County – the miraculous nature of chance encounters, and the incredible challenges that come with bidding farewell to someone whose time in your life may be short, but their impact on it absolutely immeasurable. As one of the more unconventional films the oddly prolific Clint Eastwood made in his career (at least in terms of it being one that deviates from the kind of film he normally produced), The Bridges of Madison County, his adaptation of the novel by Robert James Waller, is a staggering achievement, and one of the several works that can stake a legitimate claim to the director’s best film. Over a quarter of a century since its release, this film continues to stand as one of the most beautiful ever produced, a poetic ode to the nature of romance, and one that leaps into the very heart of the experience of falling in love, showing how it can be an instant process once we found that right person. Yet, it also shows the heartbreaking reality that comes when we realize that, as the taut adage states, some people come for a reason, a season or a lifetime – but even when all we have to live on is memory, there is still value in visiting the past and replaying those beautiful days in our minds. Eastwood worked hard to adapt Waller’s novel, and in the process managed to leave an indelible impression on a decade that saw him experimenting with genre and conventions like he hadn’t before – and sitting right at the centre of this period in the director’s career is this film, the gem of a career that saw him traverse many corners of the industry, but none quite as well as he did here. There is a legitimate argument to be made that Unforgiven is Eastwood’s most personal work, but that The Bridges of Madison County is his peak as a filmmaker and storyteller – and while he has continued to work steadily into the present day, he has never quite been able to reach the heights he did with this stunning work.

Letting go is never easy, and it can sometimes be a harrowing process – but it’s one that is necessary, and like a beautiful garden, sometimes we need to prune to both prevent it from becoming unmanageable, and for the purposes of uncovering the beautiful interior that lurks beneath. The Bridges of Madison County is a film centred almost entirely on memory – it is bookended by scenes depicting the aftermath of one of the protagonists’ death, and how her children discover the secrets she held from public view for thirty years. They launch themselves into the past, and see the world through their mother’s eyes, and find that her perspective reveals so much about who she was as a woman, and how her perception on life changed after an encounter that never should’ve happened, but yet seemed so fateful, considering how it changed the entire trajectory of her life going forward, for better or worse. Ethereal, but rooted deeply within the realities many of us face when we make a connection with someone over a brief period of time, and fear that dreaded farewell, since while we may always hold hope in our hearts that we will meet again, the fact remains that sometimes the most personal bonds are made to be broken, and that even in the heartbreaking process of realizing that not every connection can last forever, doesn’t mean the relationship has to end, since we tend to form links with each other that transcend the physical space, with the most poignant memories helping to maintain the lessons we learned from undergoing the experience. On the surface, The Bridges of Madison County is a very simple romance, but peering just below, we can see how truly complex it is as a human drama, and how it aims to be an emotional catharsis aimed at anyone who has ever felt the same deep melancholy of losing someone to the unpredictable nature of reality.

The Bridges of Madison County is a film that comes dangerously close to spiralling out of control, becoming a convoluted, overly-complex romance that moves around aimlessly. However, the aspect that keeps it grounded is the one component this film shares with many made over the past fifty years – the presence of Meryl Streep. How one performer can simultaneously be perhaps the finest in the history of English-language cinema, but still astonish with nearly every performance she is, is an anomaly that I believe has propelled her career as far as it has, since she is never one to rest on her laurels. In the same vein of The Bridges of Madison County being Eastwood’s best film, there are those who argue that her heartbreaking portrayal of Francesca Johnson is Streep’s finest work. The veracity of this remains to be seen – she is certainly absolutely spellbinding, and breaks our hearts in a way she rarely has before, but in a career consisting of innumerable iconic performances, we simply can’t reduce her peak to a single performance, regardless of how magnificent she is in it. However, this film does showcase everything that has come to define Streep – a masterful control of her craft (both the accent work she does is impeccable, and the way she moves her body has rarely been more visceral than it was here), the intricacies to which she develops the character, and her incredible ability to find the truth in absolutely every moment. Even in her most garish work, Streep’s characters never ring is inauthentic – over-the-top and eccentric they may be at times, but they’re never false. The Bridges of Madison County affords her the chance to turn in one of her most heartwrenching portrayals, playing a woman who is faced with a very clear decision, aware of the consequences of both, but not of the path that awaits her on either side (there is an early scene that foreshadows this, where Streep’s character describes the route to one of the titular bridges consisting of a fork in the road), but with the firm knowledge that whatever path she takes, she won’t live in regret for not choosing the other. It’s a shattering portrayal of a woman realizing her self-worth, but not having the external fortitude to actually surrender to her desires, which isn’t as easy a task as it would seem in theory.

Eastwood’s choices as both an actor and director in The Bridges of Madison County showcase how, when it is necessary, he can step away from the spotlight and give the attention to someone else, in this case Streep, who commands the film. However, this decision also gives the director the chance to demonstrate that he can make something very subtle. Not someone who exclusively worked in gaudy, over-the-top productions, there was a sense of grandiosity that defined many of his directorial credits leading up to this. While they may not have always been bombastic, there was a kind of bravado and excess that lingered across most of them. The Bridges of Madison County is a very different kind of story, and represented the start of what would become a brief but memorable period of Eastwood taking on smaller stories, without needing to expand on them to the point where the poeticism find in their simplicity is lost for the sake of a spectacle. We’re invited into this world, companions to the two main characters as they discover their love for one another – we feel like passive observers, but not in the sense of voyeuristically gazing at their budding romance, rather as quiet spectators into their growing relationship. It’s always a wonderful sensation when a film is able to place the viewer in the mind of the character, and seeing the world through Francesca’s perspective is a unique experience, since she leads a perfectly happy and content life, but one that is unchanging and doesn’t present her with any challenges, which is really what she strives for. Eastwood reflects her growing disillusionment in a series of small moments, where he works closely with Streep to develop these two characters to the point where they’re not irresistibly charming individuals (since their flaws are quite clear, but never distracting), and creates a world that is familiar, but also somehow mystical in how it harbours these desires. The pastoral beauty of rural Iowa contrasts sharply with the burning desires present in these characters, and somehow, Eastwood manages to convey this passion with precision, making it a simmering romance without any trace of cheap, gaudy lustfulness that a lesser director would’ve defaulted to when presented with such a premise.

The Bridges of Madison County is an astonishing film, and a worthy candidate for some of the best work done by both Streep and Eastwood (it is certainly amongst the best performances the latter has ever given, since it showcases how he can be a vulnerable, complex protagonist, as opposed to the stoic, mysterious anti-hero he often played in previous ventures). It is rooted in a deep sense of reality that keeps us mystified and enthralled, since each decision made by these characters uncovers a new clue to who they are, and what complex quandaries underpin their seemingly simple existences. It’s a stunning achievement that finds the humanity in the most inconsequential moments – a lingering stare, a brief touch, or the emotions that come from the most brief encounters which turn out to leave us with a lifetime of memories, from which our entire futures tend to hinge, since the lessons we learn through loving and leaving someone can sometimes be more impactful than a relationship that lasts a lifetime. It doesn’t appear to be much, but The Bridges of Madison County is an incredible film, serving as the kind of open-hearted, mature romantic drama that respects its characters and the general ideas that they represent, as well as the audience, who watch as these beautiful details gradually flourish, to the point where even the harrowing final scenes come across as pure visual poetry, the product of a director who knew how to extract all the necessary emotions from a scene, a script that lived up to the immense task of turning a four-day affair into a lifelong romance, and a pair of actors who take on these challenging roles and end up giving some of their finest performances to date. It’s a poignant, heartfelt glimpse into the human condition, and a truly unforgettable reminder of the value of celebrating life and all of its idiosyncrasies, since we never know whether or not an encounter with a stranger can change our entire perspective on the world around us.