It may be true that the best movie romances are always bittersweet, but this Clint Eastwood effort goes so far beyond bittersweet it’s downright depressing. Based on Robert James Waller’s best-seller, the movie traces a four-day affair between a National Geographic photographer on assignment (Eastwood) and an unsatisfied Iowa housewife (Meryl Streep, breathing real life into a stereotypical role). What begins as a celebration of love’s intensity, however, gives way to a lament over its fleeting nature, as Francesca, the wife, begins to realize this relationship will not be able to withstand everyday life. The result is a love noir, in a sense, in which the heroes are conflicted and no one wins in the end.
