Grand, all-consuming passion is always difficult to put across on screen and, valiantly though Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep try here, they don't quite have the material to enable them to do it.

The result is a gentle adaptation of a florid bestseller.

Streep plays the Italian-born Iowa ranch wife who enjoys an idyllic few days with Eastwood's travelling photographer, who proves to be the overwhelming love of her life.