The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Mary McGuckian (This is the Sea) has produced a handsome, if curiously inert version of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning novella. While the story presents a compelling inquiry into the nature of fate, this fourth adaptation, after a 1944 movie and 1958 tele-film, never quite overcomes some odd casting decisions. Set in Lima, Peru in the early-1700s, the story concerns the inquiry by Brother Juniper (Gabriel Byrne) into the deaths of five travelers who drowned when the bridge they were crossing collapsed. Was it divine intervention or random chance? As Juniper tells the Archbishop (Robert De Niro, making no effort to disguise his New York accent), while on trial for heresy, "Either we live by accident and die by accident or we live by plan and die by plan." Using his trial as a framing device, McGuckian flashes back to the circumstances that led the victims to their date with destiny. The primary players include the Viceroy (F. Murray Abraham), La Marquesa (Kathy Bates), the Abbess (Geraldine Chaplin), Uncle Pio (Harvey Keitel), La Perichole (Pilar López de Ayala), and twins Manuel and Esteban (Mark and Michael Polish of Northfork fame). So who fell? Unlike previous productions, the answer won't be revealed until the end, at which point Juniper will be forced to put his findings into a theological context--or suffer the cost. --Kathleen C. Fennessy Amazon.com

Brings back old memories.

Saw this Movie when it first came out. I was very young but have not forgotten it.Have'nt been able to find it on T.V. so when I saw it here Had to buy it.Very interesting story & Liked the way it was put together. Don't usually like Flashbacks but this was so very well done.Of course most of the actors have become very well known thru the years.Some of my favorites.I highly recommend it.Is one of my very favorites.I've been trying to find some of the pictures I saw as a child. Have found some. Now have a different insight to them because of my age I guess. May 19, 2008

Boring movie, dull questioning...

The first boring movie I have ever seen Robert de Niro act in.
This movie has a star cast, but it never gets off the ground. It plods along till is comes to a whimpering end.
Probably because the novella it is based on, is actually (in spite of all the hype surrounding it) forgettable.
It seems the tale is told in order to do a post modernist sort of "unpacking" of events in order to arrive at some insight into either evil or the nature of randomness.
In other words, why did the bridge break and did those particular people fell to death. Did they deserve it, and so.
I was left with the puzzle why is this question only asked when a bridge collapse? I mean, why did the chicken die crossing the road?
The whole dull attempt at unraveling, however, is invalidated by the fact that never is the question asked why did the bridge ACTUALLY collapse - was it well maintained? Did a rope snap? Was it a new rope, etc.
Hell, maybe the man in charge of checking the rope was drunk?
Maybe the Lima people never actually did any maintenance on the bridge! Then it is of course not all that metaphysical...
Don't watch this movie. Rather go to sleep. Or read Dostoevsky. July 1, 2007

Be careful with whom you associate! It could cost your life!

Five people plummet to their graves crossing a suspension bridge in 18th century Peru.WHY did THESE PARTICULAR PEOPLE die is the question? Father Juniper(Gabriel Byrne) has been commissioned by the Spanish Inquisition to determine just that.One thing is certain and only one thing:the five victims all had association with the actress La Perichole.
Based from the Thornton Wilder novel of the same name,Mary McGuckian's screenplay minutely examines the facts in the lives of these five victims.This film IS an inquest, and McGuckian's thorough retelling of Wilder's book is accurately brought to the screen with an intelligent portrayal by an all-star International ensemble of the most well known A-list actors in the world.Special mention,though,has to go to Kathy Bates as the Marquesa.She is a wonder!It is also great to see F.Murray Abraham playing a Salieri-like role that grabbed him his Oscar in AMADEUS.
For SOUNDTRACK LOVERS,the score written and conducted by Lalo Schifrin and The Philharmonia Orchestra is among the best film scores---very LA MANCHA!
Beautifully filmed in Madrid with gorgeous period costumes to boot,THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY is a masterful adaptation of a brilliant Pulitzer Prize winning novel rendered faithfully and rivetingly. February 11, 2007

Wonderful

I read the book years and years ago, so I can't say if this was a faithful adaptation or not. It was wonderfully filmed and acted. Kathy Bates is at her absolute best. For me, one of the saddest parts of the whole movie was the story of the twins who talked to no one except each other (though I don't think they say anything in the movie), and were so dependent on each other. When one dies, the other tries to commit suicide. The story tells the lives of the five people who died when the bridge collapses. September 12, 2006

mixed response

I loved Thornton Wilder's delicate and moving novel and approached this movie accordingly. By the time I watched it through, I reached a point of exasperation, feeling that so much of it was good or even excellent, yet the pacing suffered and the editing failed to drive the watcher securely along the road to the end. Gabriel Byrne, Harvey Keitel and F. Murray Abraham performed excellently, Byrne in particular. Byrne's ongoing narration does its best to bind the tale together, and his quality of voice enriches this movie, giving it a beauty that persists in my memory. I could only have wished that towards the end he had given us a little more hint of the gathering horror that Brother Juniper must feel at his situation. A horror that will never be allowed a voice.
However, Robert DeNiro was horribly miscast. I am a DeNiro admirer; I have particularly loved his roles in such movies as Awakenings and The Deer Hunter and The Mission. But not here. Whether it is due to the director's reading of the character or his own, he lacked the necessary gravitas to persuade me that he believed in his own identity. He came across as light voiced, dismayingly colloquial, and, perhaps due to the shape of his moustache, perilously close to comical.Even his asking for Brother Juniper's death gave him no depth. John Lynch and Geraldine Chapman fill out their characters amazingly for the shortness of their actual time on screen. Katherine Bates disappointed me a little -- I wanted more heart. Given the nature of the Marquesa, I wanted sloppiness, more piggishness and self-pity from her in the beginning. When Byrne in his overvoice speaks of the tyranny that informs her maternal love, we have only really seen the generosity of that love.Perhaps a little more time to watch her reactions, more time to see her ideas developing on her face, would have aided the realization of the character in full.
Despite that last comment where I am asking for more rather than less, I wonder if more severe cutting might have helped this film. In visual terms it is beautiful and the details are extremely well realized. I must watch this movie again; I feel that it could have been a truly great film and I feel personally disappointed that it is not. May 19, 2006

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