Cuando los hijos se alejan

Sadder than this very moving film are the reactions of those who found this movie boring or too "slow." What a comment on the need for car chases and explosions that seem so pervasive in American flicks!! One of the reason I prefer foreign films.

"Mr and Mrs Bridge" is an amazingly accurate depiction of upper middle class lives, caught in the trap of repression and respectability. To watch the fate of Mrs Bridge (exquisitely portrayed by Joanne Woodward) as a woman trapped in a marriage to an inexpressive, career-focused man is to understand how women, even today, can lead limited, unfulfilled lives, bound up with a decisive husband and children who grow into self-absorbed adults, leaving their mother with a longing they won't or can't assuage.

Seeing the character of Mr. Bridge (another outstanding performance by Paul Newman), himself caught in the routine of his life, his sexual yearnings repressed, convinced of his correctness and respectability is a picture of the rigidity of ideas, values and prejudices rampant in our society, even in our own time.

An amazing and insight movie!!

My review was written in August 1990 after watching the film at a TriBeCa screening room.

Paul Newman & Joanne Woodward plus the Merchant Ivory Productions team are in top form for "Mr. & Mrs. Bridge", an affecting study of an uppercrust Midwestern family 50 years ago. Obvious contender for Venice Film Festival prizes shapes up as a potent arthouse entry this winter.

Merchant Ivory collaborator Ruth Prawer Jhabvalla has adapted the two Evan S. Connell novels into a taut script. Books "Mrs. Bridge" (1959) and "Mr. Bridge" (1969) painted (from each spouse's point of view) a portrait of stuffy Kansas City lawyer Walter Bridge and his stifled wife India, by a steady accretion of anecdotal detail.

The screenplay presents a series of highly dramatic scenes in their lives, the payoffs among the novels' hundreds of brief chapters. The vignette structure is retained, but pic's two hours breeze by thanks to director James Ivory's concise approach and crisp editing (including careful wipes) by Humphrey Dixon.

Central theme of India Bridge's gradual realization that her life has been crushed in her husband's shadow is strongly conveyed by Woodward in the role.

Physically resembling the late Geraldine Page, she should be in the Oscar running this year for a nuanced, often funny portrayal of a multidimensional woman whose options have gradually been snuffed out.

Casting of hubby Newman as her husband resonates in their intimate scenes, particularly a 1939 vacation to Paris when the Bridges briefly rekindle their romance, only to have it cut short by the onset of World War II.

Newman's controlled perforance as the iron-willed condervative is both a carerr hange of pace and highlight.

While Inid abeocmes inceaingly furstrated with being a housewife and country club member, a change is in the wind. Best friend Grace (Blythe Danner perky in film's showiest role) is a kook and free spirit. Their mutal pal Grace Ong (singer Gale Garnett in an arresting brief turn) boasts of the values of psychoanalysis. All three Bridge offspring are in open rebellion against their parents and conservative society.

Kyra Sedgwick, recently Tom Cruise's girlfriend in "Born on the Fourth of July", is smashing as the Bridges' bohemian daughter who takes off for New York and an arts career. Feisty Margaret Welsh has a show-stopping scene telling her mom off after her defiant marriage to a boy from across the tracks ends up on the rocks. Robert Sean Leonard as the duo's son is solid in key emotional scenes with Woodward and Newman.

Pic's climax retains the shattering finale of "Mrs. Bridge", but presents it in a different context. Careful selection of supporting players pays off: stage thesp Diane Kagana is a powerhouse as Newman's secretary, expressing her pain at having been equally neglected by him for 20 years. Sanudra McClain is a tower of strength as the family's maid, and Austin Pendleton and Simon Callow provide comic relief.

Producer Ismail Merchant has arranged for impressive period detail including set pieces such as a tornado while Newman calmly dines with his wife at the country club and an evocative trip to Pari. Tech credits by MIP regulars are of a high standard, notably Tony Pierce-Roberts' sharp focus photography and Richard Robbins' spare, threatening musical score.

An amusing end credit reads: "Shakespearean tutor to Mr. Newman: Sen. Bob Dole", referring to the Kansas politician's reading of "Romeo and Juliet" to help the star develop his flinty characterization.

Films produced under the Merchant/Ivory banner are, as a general rule, respectable, literate, and often more than a little bit dull. But here's an exception (to the last rule, at least): an intimate, snapshot diary of an ordinary, middle-class, mid-American couple, played by the off-screen couple of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Ruth Jhabvala's sensitive adaptation of the twin novels by Evan Connell is highlighted by her customary wit and attention to detail, with Newman and Woodward improving on the title roles by adding in their performances subtle shades of character which can't be written into any script. The episodic, slice-of-life structure doesn't allow for any dramatic momentum, and there isn't much of a message beyond the observation that native mid-westerners are emotionally repressed, but under James Ivory's typically graceful direction (and with the help of a first-rate supporting cast) it's an uncommonly rich film, full of privileged moments.

Mr.&Mrs. Bridge is an interesting character study of a pair of a typical married couple during the years before our entry into World War II. The film does provide a good insight into the American mindset of a Republican oriented couple of the period, hardly the political orientation of its two stars.

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward are the Bridges with two daughters and a son who are all reaching adulthood. Kyra Sedgwick is the rebellious Bohemian type who just wants to shake the dust of her conservative roots and fly. Maureen Collins wants to get married and she makes a disastrous choice of a husband. But that is partly to get away from her father's ideas. And son Robert Sean Leonard is an Eagle Scout and apparently a chip of dad's old block. But he thinks there is more to life than his father's ideas. He's looking to join the army.

The film netted Joanne Woodward an Oscar nomination for Best Actress and she is the most interesting character in the film. She longs to recapture her youth when Newman was apparently a far more passionate individual than the stuffed shirt lawyer. She tries to shake Newman out of his smug complacency, but ultimately fails.

The Bridges are an interesting pair, but ultimately not very satisfying. I have to applaud the characterizations which are first rate, but this story which seemed really not to have a point just left me cold.

However fans of Newman and Woodward will like Mr.&Mrs. Bridge.

I first saw this movie when released in 1990 and just watched it again, partly out of curiosity as to whether i would feel differently about it. I don't. I still see it as a movie with all the right things going for it but just missing the mark.

The acting, writing, cinematography, etc. are all exemplary. It is, i believe, the movie's episodic structure which ultimately makes it seem rather uneventful when, in reality, the story is made up of many quite important events. An episodic structure, can work just fine, of course, but, as with most successful stories, it still needs to have a certain "build" to it in order to really satisfy. If that "build" IS here in this movie, it is so muted as to be incoherent to most viewers. Not that Mr and Mrs Bridge is not worth viewing! In fact, its thematics are well worth discussing. In my eyes, the parents represent an older, more traditional way of life on the verge of irreversible change, as personified by their children (though one or two of them eventually settle back into the groove). The country club/tornado sequence seems especially significant in light of such a reading, that a "storm" is on its way and they had better take cover. That Mr Bridge should remain steadfast in its occurence speaks volumes about his character. There are myriads of wonderful little character traits, etc., in this movie worth pondering, by the way.

While Mr Bridge is a fascinating persona, it is Mrs Bridge who, for me, remains central to the film. In fact, it might be THE major statement of the movie that this suburban woman has begun to awaken to how sheltered (stifled?) she and others like her have been. Though she does yearn for more--in a sense she really does want to be fully awakened--she never becomes more than vaguely enlightened. She realizes--even accepts with a great deal of comfort--how "lucky" they are to have lived such a privileged life. Though there have been many victims of female discontentedness (e.g. her friend Grace), she and many like her have adapted quite well to their mode of survival and comfortable living. It simply means sacrificing all of those crazy dreams that artistic types pursue, not to mention sacrificing passion--real passion--for life.

There are many significant instances to underscore Mrs Bridge's circumstance as a woman dependent on her man, but none better, perhaps, than the at the end of the movie as a pampered victim in a car: "hello? hello? is there anybody there?"...indeed!