“I know it sounds trite, but we could tour The Bridges of Madison County.” — Martin Prince to Bart Simpson, Milhous van Houton and Nelson Muntz prior to getting beat up. According to my mother, this is one of those very rare instances where the movie is better than the book. I don’t doubt it. The story is very simple and during the occasional voice over the prose is, frankly, quite bad. But it’s the performances. I don’t want to sound like People Magazine or nothin’, but the chemistry between Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood is striking. It’s hard for the rugged, well-spoken, craftsman/artist Clint Eastwood driving down Rural Route 2 not to touch the bored Italian-native housewife in all of us. You don’t need a hankie at the end of this one (esp. if you are watching at 1 am) then you’ve got some problems.