Synopsis
The Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel, first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. It tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope-fiber suspension bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge. A friar who has witnessed the tragic accident then goes about inquiring into the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Gabriel ByrneBrother Juniper
- F. Murray AbrahamViceroy of Peru
- Kathy BatesThe Marquesa
- Robert De NiroArchbishop of Peru
- Harvey KeitelUncle Pio
- Pilar López de AyalaCamila Villegas (La Perichola)
- Mark PolishManuel
- Michael PolishEsteban
- Adriana DomínguezPepita
- Geraldine ChaplinThe Abbess
Recommendations
- 50
The Hollywood Reporter
Ultimately comes across as a soporific costume drama featuring a gallery of miscast stars. - 50
TV Guide Magazine
Though handsomely mounted, this parable of intersecting destinies and implacable tragedy is as lifeless as a wax tableau. - 40
Variety
The stellar cast can do little to paper over the cracks in an awkward, unevenly-paced script that is composed of a series of sometimes-attractive scenes with little emotional undertow. - 40
Village Voice
An honorable but dull attempt to translate a neglected literary source to the screen. - 30
The New York Times
May be the opposite of trash, but it is something just as disposable: dead literary meat. Dragged down by a stuffy screenplay clotted with generic period oratory, overdressed to the point that the actors seem physically impeded by their ornate costumes, and hopelessly muddled in its storytelling, the movie is edited with a haphazardness that leaves many dots unconnected. - 25
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The script and direction by Irish filmmaker Mary McGuckian is just deadly. - 25
New York Daily News
Rates an inquisition of its own. It may not be heresy to fill out an ensemble cast of Peruvian and Spanish characters almost exclusively with non-Hispanic actors, but it certainly destroys any sense of authenticity. - 20
Washington Post
After watching this movie, which stars Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Kathy Bates and Gabriel Byrne, I was moved only to find my own bridge to leap from.
