When her family is off at the state fair vaguely discontented Iowa housewife Francesca Johnson (Meryl Streep) meets National Geographic shutterbug Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood) who''s in Madison County to shoot Iowa''s covered bridges. What begins as a guarded friendship soon erupts into an intense affair that rekindles Francesca''s forgotten passions. But she finds her emotions in conflict when the time comes to choose her future.