Butler's Cinema Scene

Waldemar Torenstra and Anna Drijver in "Bride Flight"

“BRIDE FLIGHT” My rating: C+ (Opening Aug. 5 at the Glenwood at Red Bridge)

130 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The Kiwi entry “Bride Flight” is less an art film than a romance with grand ambitions.

Unspooling over four decades, this effort from director Ben Sombogaart and writer Marieke van der Pol follows three women and one man from the Netherlands who in the years after World War II attempt to rebuild their lives as emigres to New Zealand.

In a prologue we meet Frank (Rutger Hauer), operator of one of New Zealand’s most successful vineyards. The old fellow dies of a heart attack and word goes out for his loved ones to gather for a sendoff.

Among them are three elderly women (Petra Laseur, Pleuni Touw, Willeke van Ammelrooy) who arrived in the country at the same time as Frank. In fact, all four flew south on the same passenger plane, determined to leave behind post-war European misery and start life anew in the Southern Hemisphere.

“Bride Flight” takes place both in the present — at Frank‘s funeral — and in the memories of the three women whose lives were touched by this lifelong bachelor.

On the long plane ride we meet Esther (Anna Drijver), a Jewish beauty who lost her entire family to the Holocaust. She’s a tough, unsentimental woman intent on bringing modern high fashion to those poor overall-wearing proles Down Under.

Marjorie (Elise Schaap) is the chatty, funny sort.
Ada (Karina Smulder) is a shy young woman heading south to join the young man who impregnated her. She doesn’t love him, but she’s stuck. Her baby bump will be showing soon.

And to complicate matters, Ada immediately hits it off with a fellow passenger, young Frank (Waldemar Torenstra). Theirs will be a lifelong love affair.

The three women find their new lives filled with challenges, in large part because the menfolk awaiting them are controlling and borderline abusive, emotionally chillly or simply socially inept.

Fashionista Esther finds herself pregnant by a one-night stand. Ada ends up saddled with several children and a joyless, highly religious husband (you can’t blame him for being suspicious…Ada does carry on a passionate correspondence with Frank).

Marjorie has a happy marriage, despite learning she’s incapable of having children. But, hey, her old buddy Esther is pregnant with a baby she doesn’t want. Maybe we can work something out?

“Bride Flight” gets pretty melodramatic, but the quality of the acting and the excellent production values carry the day. And for all the sudsy strum and drang, the film is packed with details that suggest real insight into the immigrant experience.

| Robert W. Butler