Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990)

Directed by James Ivory. Starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Robert Sean Leonard, Blythe Danner, Margaret Welsh, Kyra Sedgwick, Remak Ramsay, Simon Callow, Austin Pendleton, Gale Garnett, Diane Kagan, Saundra McClain. [PG-13]

Airless, half-baked adaptation of a pair of parallel Evan S. Connell novels (“Mrs. Bridge” and “Mr. Bridge”) chronicling the lives of a conservative, middle-aged Kansas City couple played by Newman and Woodward, a family-focused drama set against the sociopolitical evolution of the 1930s and 40s. Offers plenty of fruitful narrative strands and character study moments, but the story is always too eager to move on without resolving them or making an original point (strange, since the pacing could be described as the opposite of “eager”). Features just about the most laughably abrupt ending on film this side of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but at least you’re supposed to laugh at that one. Still worth seeing one time for the lead performances (and the last chance to see the real-life married couple onscreen together).

53/100