Movie Review - The Bridge of San Luis Rey

The Bridge is Fallen Down

With such a superb and experienced cast, one would expect a film that, if nothing else, offered well-acted and full-bodied characterizations. Unfortunately, the director at the helm of this project, Ms. Mary McGuckian, has dampened every aspect of this picture's possibilities, including the creative palettes of her onetime skillful actors. Apart from Gabriel Byrne's wonderfully introspective portrayal of the investigative priest Brother Juniper and the occasional flash of brilliance from F. Murray Abraham as the vacillating Viceroy of Peru, this film has nothing more to offer than pretty pictures. But indeed, the shots are quite well done. There is lovely visual composition in the fine-tuned cinematography of Javier Aguirresarobe and exquisite period detail in Yvonne Blake's costumes accentuated with amazingly inventive yet still realistic hair and make-up designed by Linda Devetta. Visually, this is a very appealing venture. Every other aspect, however, makes it an excruciatingly masochistic endeavor: laughable line readings, poor threadbare script, lack of any visible character development, confusing cross cutting of scenes, a disregard of clarity in the storytelling, a soundtrack that is so totally out of place as to be either a complete mistake by a musical hack or a brilliant existential commentary by a compositional genius (I can only assume the former). The most annoying element though is the potpourri of speech accents that when mixed, produced the most foul smelling sound that pervaded this film like a freezer full of gourmet beef cuts in a mid-summer kitchen that had lost its power two and a half weeks ago. I could go on, but there's no use in heaping insult upon injury. This film is simply a complete disappointment. With so much potential in having a substantial studio-backed budget, the literary source material of Thornton Wilder, and a gaggle of truly seasoned actors, Ms. McGuckian has effectively squandered any hopes of conveying the core message of this piece. She seemingly had no love for the material, and unfortunately, love is the only bridge to it.