Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990)

Very Cool!!!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

"Mr. and Mrs. Bridge," directed by James Ivory, from 1990, is the story of one American family that represents many of that era, showing them in the period of 1937 until just after the war.The Bridge family is upper middle class. Walter and India (Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward) have three children: the aspiring actress Ruth (Kyra Sedgwick, so young you can't believe it); Carolyn (Margaret Welsh), and Douglas (Robert Sean Leonard, another baby face). Walter Bridge is a conservative man, one who can't and doesn't show his feelings, an excellent businessman, by the book, and seen today, very old-fashioned, almost Victorian in his attitudes. He loves and respects his wife. India is a sweet, naive woman who doesn't know much of the world, but is exposed to it through her high-strung, independent-thinking friend (Blythe Danner) and her art classes. India takes her husband's opinions and does what he wants. The few times she puts forth other ideas, she is shot down and accepts what he says.When it comes to their children, both of them are out of it. Walter is a fair man, and when Ruth wants to go to New York, he allows it under certain conditions; when Carolyn wants to marry someone beneath their class, he hears the young man out and gives his blessing; and when Douglas wants to join the Air Force, he counsels his son to stick with his education until he's drafted.This doesn't mean that Walter and India know anything about their children's' private lives or the sex they're having. Walter is far too rigid to consider such a thing, and India is too naive.This is certainly a picture of a different time, where the older generation didn't give their emotions much play, when women went to lunch, took art classes, and everything they did revolved around their husbands, and when the man's word was law. Yet we can see the beginnings of change around the edges in their children's' lives of what's coming.The acting is marvelous, particularly from Paul Newman, who at 65 was still gloriously handsome; and from Blythe Danner, who belonged, perhaps, in a bigger city than Kansas City and among a more liberal crowd. I see where Joanne Woodward's performance has been criticized here; some of it, I gather, was because of her age and also because the character says some things considered out of character as compared to the books on which the film is based. Still, she has the sweetness, the caring, and displays the narrow thought of the character.If the film is slow, it's because of the time period in which the film is set. You sat in the living room in the evening and listened to Nelson Eddy on the radio; you went to see A Star is Born with Janet Gaynor and Frederic March; it was a more leisurely life and a quieter one. Interestingly, it was a time period in which great self-analysis and deep thought could have emerged, but it wouldn't be until after the war that psychiatry (compared to astrology by Walter), women in the workplace, and changes in morality came into vogue.Today we live so differently - it wasn't all it was cracked up to be back then, and life today sure isn't all it's cracked up to be now. A film like this does make one long for just a few of the old ways in terms of lifestyle perhaps - the simplicity, the sense of family, but in its repression and views of women, no way.

For a decade or so, James Ivory directed a series of remarkable historical dramas that developed a well-deserved following, such as A Room with a View and Remains of the Day. Though this has a cast equal to the best of those, and the acting is indeed very fine, it is by no means as enjoyable as those masterpieces.The problem lies in the story. Mr. and Mrs. Bridge tells the story of an affluent couple in 1940s Mission Hills, KS. They are extremely sexually repressed, but it's not just a matter of sex. They have accepted all the upper middle-class values of their day, to the point that they simply do not allow themselves to live.Other movies have dealt with this same situation, and been more enjoyable because at least one character came to a realization of how those values imprisoned her/him and "made a break for it." Right off hand I think of Revolutionary Road, the 1950s story in The Hours, the wife in Pleasantville, etc. The Bridges go to Paris at one moment and the art in the Louvre seems to speak to her, but it never leads anywhere. Her best friend, who feels trapped in such a life, finally commits suicide, but it doesn't bring about an awakening in Mrs. Bridge. Finally, and perhaps symbolically, she becomes trapped in her car - but is towed out and goes on as before. From what I gather from some of the other reviews, Mrs. Bridge is presented as a dullard in the novel on which this is based, and her failure to see how lost she is presented as funny. That's certainly not the case here. We are supposed to sympathize with her, but she's so impervious sometimes, and downright dim-witted, that it's very hard to do so.Two hours of this is too much, and the end, which marks no change, emphasizes this. The story and the characters simply are not interesting enough to justify sitting through the movie, as well as it is acted and as beautifully as it is filmed. We get the point in the first 15 minutes or so; the rest of the movie adds nothing to that.I honestly cannot recommend that anyone watch it.

Out of the Merchant Ivory productions I have seen, Mr and Mrs Bridge is my least favourite probably. That said, it is not a bad film, far from it. The production values are superb, I loved the beautiful cinematography and the scenery and costumes are equally exquisite, while the soundtrack is well-chosen and well-incorporated. Richard Robbins' score is a nice touch too. In general, the script is thought provoking and touching and the characters are believable. The direction is also solid, and the acting particularly from Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward is excellent.However, the film is in my view overlong, and further disadvantaged by one too many scenes that drag badly. While I was touched the story and admired it, some of is episodic and could have done with more cohesion. Overall though, I did like the movie but I prefer Remains of the Day, Room with a View and Howards End over Mr and Mrs Bridge. Worth seeing for the production values and cast. 7/10 Bethany Cox

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!!