Product Description

Screen favorites Paul Newman (ROAD TO PERDITION) and Joanne Woodward (PHILADELPHIA) star as a well-off couple who raise their children in the comfort of country club society only to find their control over the family's fate slipping away. Daughter Ruth (Kyra Sedgwick -- BEHIND THE RED DOOR), leaves for the artistic bohemia of New York, more conventional Carolyn marries the "wrong sort" of man, and brother Douglas (Robert Sean Leonard -- DRIVEN) joins the army. In an empty house, the Bridges' marriage shifts. Mr. Bridge grows more rigid. But Mrs. Bridge becomes more vulnerable and searching as she begins to wonder if her husband really loves her. Directed by James Ivory (A ROOM WITH A VIEW, HOWARDS END), MR. & MRS. BRIDGE offers a wryly emotional portrait of a marriage as it rides the tumultuous changes of 1930s and '40s America.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15348 in DVD
• Brand: Miramax
• Released on: 2003-05-06
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 126 minutes

Amazon.com
Masters in depicting the superficial machinations of England's repressed upper classes, director James Ivory and his partners, screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and producer Ismail Merchant, take on the American middle class in Mr. and Mrs. Bridge. Paul Newman and wife Joanne Woodward play the eponymous main characters: a patriarch and wife of a well-to-do family, whose members are struggling to define themselves under their father's undefiable command and the changing times.

With one daughter who wants to become an actress in New York, another who chooses the "wrong" kind of man to marry, and a son who quits school to join the Air Force during World War II, Mr. Bridge finds that his control over his family is slipping. Spanning the 1930s and '40s, the film presents nuances in how both the dramatic and the smaller moments are woven together. Weddings and arguments are no more important to capturing the essence of the Bridge family then are their moments of daily reverie.

A quiet film that succeeds in establishing its characters' intimacy, with themselves and each other, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge owes much of that success to Woodward. While Newman doesn't always seem comfortable as the stern ruler of the Bridge household, Woodward steals the film as the long-suffering woman whose identity is precariously built on her ascribed roles as mother and wife, taken for granted and often overlooked by the family she truly loves. --Natasha Senjanovic

From The New Yorker
An adaptation, by the Merchant-Ivory team (the director James Ivory, the producer Ismail Merchant, and the writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala), of Evan S. Connell's novels about the painfully respectable Bridge family of Kansas City. Walter and India Bridge (Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward) are pure exemplars of the middle: they're middle-aged and middle-class; they live in a medium-sized city in virtually the dead center of the United States; and they are neither truly happy nor consciously unhappy. They're monsters of moderation. At the beginning of the film, Ivory seems eerily in tune with the novels' distinctive sensibility. The picture gets by, initially, on its strange mood of chilling coziness, and when we tire of that-and we do, because it doesn't change or develop-the actors keep us engaged a while longer. Newman doesn't try to soften the character, or to distance himself from it with exaggerated effects, and his scrupulousness pays off. The character seems not more likable but more human than it does in the novels; by very simple means, Newman enables us to understand Mr. Bridge's insensitivity and emotional ineptitude. And Woodward, too, gives a delicate, subtle performance; she embodies a foolish woman vividly and unpatronizingly. But the screenplay retains the static quality of the books' construction, so at a certain point the scenes begin to feel arbitrary. And Ivory's perspective on the material seems to become clouded by a storm of minutiae-a surfeit of period detail. (The action takes place in the late thirties and early forties.) In the end, the Bridges aren't large enough either to move us or to terrify us: they're the Ambersons without the magnificence. Also with Blythe Danner, Kyra Sedgwick, Robert Sean Leonard, Margaret Welsh, and Simon Callow. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Newman and Woodward Equally Wonderful
I don't know why so many people always give short shrift to Paul Newman when he appears with his wife, Joanne Woodward, in a film. They are both stunning actors at the peak of their acting powers in this movie. There really is no need to compare and contrast perfection itself. Merchant-Ivory is wonderful at handling the upper classes, whether they be British or American, in London, or, in this case, Kansas City, in the 1930s and 1940s. What stands out most vividly to me is that Mr. Bridges' heart condition is really not treatable back then. We are so used to heart surgery now, that life lived with a heart condition back in the 1930s and 1940s is forgotten as being an entirely different situation. The movie is about this couple and their extended family and the crises they weather. This, however, is basically what every Merchant-Ivory film is about and this one covers every nuance within the Bridges' family's structure and behavior. I really love the beautiful body of film work by Merchant-Ivory and I'm really glad that some of it is American, set in our heartland, with the cream of our acting crop.

2 thumbs up
If you are looking for violence, lots of sex and fast cars, wrong movie! But if you are looking for a thought provoking, tender, poignant and often funny story, you've hit the jackpot. I am running out of adjectives for my two favorite actors (Newman and Woodward ought to be declared America's royalty) They shine here. Much deserved Oscar nomination for Woodward and should have been one for Newman, who never ceases to amaze. Blythe Danner is a plus as well. I thouroughly enjoyed it.

Another gem from Merchant-Ivory !
I adore this movie. The performances of Paul and Joanne are near perfect. This is no "leave it to beaver " family but a group of individuals all struggling to make sense of their surroundings and ultimately failing to connect with each other. India is the most touching character, estranged from her family, she seeks solace in her best friend. The last scene was a touch puzzling, but I figured it was meant to represent Mrs. Bridge's isolation and helplessness. I thought Blythe Danner was excellent too as the kooky wife battling the bourgeois conformity that surrounded her.