Mr. and Mrs. Bridge

Mr. & Mrs. Bridge is the saga of a clean-cut, "upper-class" couple who increasingly find their post-WWII world and traditional belief systems challenged by a changing society. For Walter Bridge, an ambitious lawyer, and his wife, whose focus is her household, affluence and material comforts create a cocoon of community respectability that cloaks the void within. Mr. Bridge is dominated by reason and common sense but is vaguely aware that something is missing from his life. Mrs. Bridge, now that her children have grown up, is slowly going mad from boredom. They wonder why there is no joy. As adventurous, free-thinking friends introduce new ideas into their household, they come close to making tiny steps toward change. Will they be able to break free of their traditional roles? Read by husband-and-wife actors, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman—who starred in the 1990 film adaptation of Connell's novels—Mr. & Mrs. Bridge is a tour-de-force of contemporary American realism.