Building the Bridge Between Book, Screen : Movies: Screenwriter Richard LaGravenese finds the words to put the bestseller ‘Bridges of Madison County’ on film.

Here’s a challenge: Translate Robert James Waller’s best-selling treaclefest, “The Bridges of Madison County,” into a screen drama.

No problem, you say? Oh, we forgot: While you’re at it, make it good .

Against all odds, that is precisely what screenwriter Richard LaGravenese has done. LaGravenese previously wrote the bracing scripts for “The Fisher King” and “The Ref,” co-wrote the current graceful adaptation of “A Little Princess” with Elizabeth Chandler, adapted Franz Lidz’s “Unstrung Heroes” for director Diane Keaton and will next tackle “The Mirror Has Two Faces” for Barbra Streisand.

“Bridges” stars Meryl Streep as Francesca, a dutifully bored Midwestern housewife who, while her family is away, encounters Robert, a rugged National Geographic photographer (Clint Eastwood, who also directs). Her halting relationship with this shutterbug develops inevitably into something deeper.

What makes the film work is the painstaking way in which LaGravenese and Eastwood delineate the burgeoning relationship. Instead of the quip-smile-montage-and-boom!-they’re-in-love glibness Hollywood is usually content to pass off for romance, “Bridges,” in long takes and even longer scenes, brings audiences into Francesca’s kitchen where long, rambling, intimate conversations give way to passion. LaGravenese and Eastwood should also be credited for stripping off a lot of the mythic doggerel in which Waller had surrounded Robert.

Would, by any chance, LaGravenese like to share his thoughts on his source material here? “Not really,” the writer says, laughing.

Becoming more diplomatic, he adds, “I thought there was something special there. The writing wasn’t to my particular taste. But Clint was very smart about what was successful and finding the balance between my inventing and respecting what was there.”

But first, LaGravenese says, “I had to find a way into the story for myself. I was really longing to do a character piece, nothing complicated, just a simple story. That was one reason to do this. But I was hemming and hawing over whether to do it. It was such a bestseller, and there’s a nervousness you get when you get offered something like this. The backlash had already begun. I had to ask myself, ‘Am I being tempted here, or this important for me to do?’ ”

While mulling this over, LaGravenese called his sister, who lives in Florida and has been married for 25 years. “I said, ‘Have you read this book?’ And she said, ‘Ah, it’s my life.’ When you’ve been in a marriage for so long, she said, and the kids are grown, you never think you can have those feelings again.

“And I realized I was being something of an artistic snob here. Whatever I feel or don’t feel about the book, it’s touching people. There’s something there that’s important in this day and age that people are connecting to. There’s a speech in the film inspired by what my sister said to me.”

Others had taken passes on the script, but producers Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg were less than enchanted. The problem, LaGravenese said, was “they had directly adapted the book, and that wasn’t a movie.”

“I took it from her point of view. At the same time, I gave him an inner life. I made him a little more human. I had to find flaws, where he was imperfect, and they were in his fears, his inability to connect. I also felt they should fight, if this is supposed to be an affair they crammed into a few days that lasted a lifetime. Falling in love is hard, it’s not just euphoric.”

LaGravenese also expanded the role of Francesca’s adult children, who discover her diary, and wrote a first draft that explored her fantasy life, solely in an effort to understand the character better. “It was kind of a cross between ‘Diary of a Mad Housewife’ and ‘Brief Encounter,’ ” he says, laughing at the improbability.

The screenwriter brought a similar sensitivity and stylishness to “A Little Princess,” based on the Frances Hodgson Burnett children’s book about a little girl who must endure a bitter change in her fortunes when her father is declared killed in World War I.

As producer Mark Johnson recalls, “His second draft just soared. It was one of those great moments for someone who develops screenplays, when you see something where not only has that person gotten what you wanted out of it but so much more. That’s when I knew it was a movie.”

LaGravenese took on the project while under contract to Disney. “They had all these scripts that were in development and needed work. I picked that one. I wanted to do a children’s movie. I loved the story because Sara survives because of her storytelling, her imagination. She elevates everyone around her because of that connection.”

Children are tougher than adults give them credit and can deal with harsher elements in stories, LaGravenese says. “I was freaked by ‘Bambi,’ but I survived, and somehow that experience became more meaningful. It wasn’t sugarcoated. ‘The Lion King’ went for very emotional moments sometimes. Kids feel proud when they see something like that and survive it.”

Before finding success as a screenwriter, LaGravenese was a struggling New York actor. He began making money writing monologues for other actors, and sold a piece to the revue “A . . . My Name Is Alice.” Next came his first credited screenplay, the counterculture comedy “Rude Awakening.”

LaGravenese no longer harbors the acting bug, he vows.

“Ugh! The day I acted on ‘The Ref’ was the worst day of my life!” he recalls with laughter about a cameo shot. “The only reason I did that was because they were short one person that day. One thing I’ve learned is, I’m not an actor.”