by Paul Stokstad
The good news about this movie is that Meryl Streep does great, the kids subplot is
well-handled, Iowa comes off better than in the book, and Fairfield actress Michelle
Benes nails her part to the wall. Plus the director, Clint Eastwood, gets good
performances out of everybody. Except Clint Eastwood.
It's the old saying, the lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client. Because
although Clint the director must get some credit for all the good news in this movie,
the experiment of using the macho hero of Rawhide, A Fistful of Dollars, and Dirty
Harry as a romantic lead might have worked out better if Eastwood had a little help in
the emotional depth department from a neutral but informed director/observer.
Meryl Streep, on the other hand, consistently builds a believable world of emotion in
her portrayal of the war bride Italian turned Iowa Farm wife. Her attraction to Clint's
character grows inexorably toward the parting scene in which her face conveys
passion, attraction, intense attention and timeless loss, all without a word spoken.
Plus, she seemed to me to have studied characteristic movement and gestures typical
of an Italian woman and to have successfully integrated them into the part. I believed
she was Italian.
But I didn't believe that Clint's character was emotionally or artistically significant
enough to generate this kind of response out of any woman, much less Meryl's
Francesca. He just seemed like another guy, and not that much more interesting than
the farmer husband who was forgotten for a few furious days.
Perhaps it was a screenplay challenge, in the conversion from the book, because in the
book there's all that time in the "after story' where his intense devotion to their love
became clear. What you'd like to see in a movie is some change in the principal
characters, some growth. Positive change clearly overtakes every one except Clint,
and in the few scenes where you'd expect an emotional breakthrough on his part, the
camera isn't even on his face, or we get the result rather than the process of change.
Still, it's great seeing Michelle performing with the greats, and she did a creditable
job, most notably in a little glance over Meryl's shoulder in the "Here's some cake"
scene, which instantly conveys the tremendous insecurity of Michelle's socially
outcast character. Personally, I'm hoping they'll cast her in a sequel where she gets
back at all the gossipers and title it "The Bitches of Madison County." You heard it
here first.
Anyway, the movie's worth seeing, and if you want to know what a real Italian thinks,
ask Francesco Volpone here in Fairfield, Iowa.
© Paul Stokstad 1995