The Bridge of San Luis Rey

The Bridge of San Luis Rey
by Mary McGuckian

The Bridge of San Luis Rey
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: F. Murray Abraham, Gabriel Byrne, Geraldine Chaplin, Kathy Bates, Robert De Niro
Director: Mary McGuckian
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-10-11
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: New Line Home Video
Product features:
  • Five people are killed in a freak accident when a lofty rope bridge collapses. A priest journeys to discover if there was a divine reason for this bloody disaster. Set in Lima, Peru, during the 18th century and based on the Thornton Wilder novel.Running Time: 120 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?DRAMA Rating:?PG Age:?794043841521 UPC:?794043841521 Manufacturer No:&nbs

Movie Reviews of The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Movie Review: Who is Mary McGuckian and can we thank her enough?
Summary: 5 Stars

(Well, she is the director of this wonderful film.)

I never thought to be able to see Thornton Wilder's novel realized adequately in my lifetime. That it has been done -- and very beautifully -- is a tribute not only to the many gifted artists who contrived it, but to the producers who paid for the attempt. Such men and women deserve medals.

The film is magnificent to look at, and the actors excellent. Some may be disenchanted by listening to these tremendously celebrated people in American POP art, with their so-famous American voices; voices which seem intrinsically wrong in an historical context, but all that can be resolved by listening to the film in Spanish.

Like the character in the story, Uncle Pio, I too am strongly attracted to women's beauty -- why bother otherwise with film -- and find to my delight that Pilar Lopez de Ayala who plays La Perichola is as beautiful as legend might wish, and in the same style as the magnificent Eva Green, whom she closely resembles.

Outside of that what need one say? The Bridge is magnificently costumed and was brilliantly mounted (in Spain) which evokes the vanished magnificence of old Lima. Interiors are astonishing, exteriors are wondrous. The story?

A man of sincere and orthodox faith attempts to use scientific methods to not only demonstrate the working of god's intent in a random, fatal accident involving many, but to justify his method. (Relapsed Roman Catholics may struggle not to fall to their knees and tear their hair. But...) The story is not facile, and though it is profound, it is not difficult. Rather, it is universal. It is a sublime story, and all I can do here, is encourage people to plunge into the experience, and then get out of the way, quickly, before making a fool of myself.

Summary of The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Five people are killed in a freak accident when a lofty rope bridge collapses. A priest journeys to discover if there was a divine reason for this bloody disaster. Set in Lima, Peru, during the 18th century and based on the Thornton Wilder novel.
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 L?pez 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

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