The House of the Spirits
Streep appeared with Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close and Winona Ryder in "The House of the Spirits" (1993), set in Chile during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. The film was not well received by critics. Anthony Lane of "The New Yorker" wrote: "This is really quite an achievement. It brings together Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas, and Vanessa Redgrave and insures that, without exception, they all give their worst performances ever". The following year, Streep starred in "The River Wild", as the mother of children on a whitewater rafting trip who encounter two violent criminals (Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly) in the wilderness. Though critical reaction was generally mixed, Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" found her to be "strong, sassy and looser than she has ever been onscreen".