bride flight movie review

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"Bride Flight" derives its title from an actual flight in 1953 between London and Christchurch, New Zealand — part of the Great Air Race. The Dutch plane in the race carries many Dutch women flying to New Zealand to meet current or prospective husbands, and the movie will follow the fortunes of three of them for many tumultuous years, using two actors to portray each of them as younger and older.

The events in the plot are the stuff of soap opera, but the movie treats it seriously, and the acting is convincing enough that we forgive the story and begin to care about the characters. Four people on the flight will find their lives linked in New Zealand. Ada ( Karina Smulders ) and Marjorie ( Elise Schaap ) are flying out to meet their husbands. Esther ( Anna Drijver ), a Holocaust survivor, is a fashion designer hoping to start a new business. Frank ( Waldemar Torenstra ) is a hunky rancher. During the flight, Ada, who has met her new husband only once, finds that she and Frank are falling in love.

In Christchurch, they all find an optimistic postwar city that's filled with opportunity, especially in contrast with war-torn Holland. Ada stays with her husband (Micha Hulshof), a fiercely censorious Calvinist. Esther opens a design studio. Marjorie finds she can't have children. Esther finds she can, but doesn't want to; her career comes first. And Frank — well, Frank is a genial lad, well-liked, and if he isn't with the one he loves, he loves the one he's with.

"Bride Flight" takes this melodrama and adds details of period, of behavior, of personality, to somewhat redeem its rather inevitable conclusion. The key figure is Ada, who has three children, and then arrives at a momentous decision which colors everything else that happens. Esther and Marjorie find that their own decisions are not so easily left in the past.

You can sense I'm not describing much of the story. It wouldn't be fair. A film like "Bride Flight" works because we want to see it unfolding. We observe the pieces going into place and want to see how it will all work out. That it works out more or less inevitably is to be expected, I suppose, but you'd be upset if I revealed some of the twists and turns.

This is the biggest-budgeted film ever made in the Netherlands, not least because the story of the real bride flight is well-known and involves a period fraught with emotion. So considerable is the production that Rutger Hauer has returned to Dutch films after almost 30 years to play the older Frank. The young actresses who play the three leads are all capable, and Karina Smulders much more than that, in a role that takes her deeper than the others.

Three observations. (1) There's a danger in assigning a mannerism to a character and enforcing it too relentlessly. Esther smokes using a little cigarette holder, which she always holds next to her face. This begins to be a glitch. (2) In a scene at an airport, a crucial piece of information is imparted in a subtle and rather elegant understatement. You'll see what I mean. (3) There is a love scene of real urgency and passion. Often movie sex scenes seem to be merely energetic exercise.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Bride Flight (2011)

Rated R for a strong sex scene and some graphic nudity

130 minutes

Karina Smulders as Ada

Anna Drijver as Esther

Elise Schaap as Marjorie

Petra Laseur as Marjorie

Rutger Hauer as Older Frank

Waldemar Torenstra as Frank

Directed by

• Ben Sombogaart
• Marieke van de

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Movie Review | 'Bride Flight’

Three Friends, Each on a Journey

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By Stephen Holden

• June 9, 2011

The scent of perfumed suds hangs heavily over “Bride Flight,” a 130-minute fictionalized quasi-epic inspired by an actual contest known as the Last Great Air Race . The winner of the roughly 12,000-mile flight from London to Christchurch, New Zealand, in October 1953 touched down 41 minutes ahead of its closest rival. The movie incorporates vintage newsreel footage of the plane leaving London on a bumpy journey nicknamed the Bride Flight because many of the passengers were Dutch brides-to-be fleeing a country devastated by World War II.

Directed by Ben Sombogaart from a screenplay by Marieke van der Pol, the movie offers in some ways an updated theme and variation on the 1941 melodrama “The Great Lie,” since its crucial plot twist involves maternity and deception. But the weepy story at the heart of “Bride Flight” is trumped by its sumptuous depiction of New Zealand in the 1950s and ’60s. This lushness has the effect of a powerful fabric softener added to the wash.

As “Bride Flight” follows the destinies of three eager young women and one man aboard that plane, it zigzags among 1953, 1963 and the present. In the contemporary scenes the women reunite for the funeral of a dashing dreamboat they met en route to their new home. In these scenes the characters, now in their 70s, are played by different actors.

One of the most expensive Dutch films ever made, “Bride Flight” is best enjoyed as a lavish period travelogue whose story is dwarfed by its panoramic overview. When the drama stalls, you can always sit back and soak in the scenery, confident that nothing in the movie is likely to disturb your sleep. New Zealand in the 1950s has the look and feel of pioneer territory emerging into modernity. Now and then, it suggests the Reconstruction half of “Gone With the Wind,” minus carpetbaggers and freed slaves.

This is not to say that the three plucky heroines don’t have a lot of adjusting to do, both to the rustic environment and to the strait-laced New Zealand menfolk. Esther (Anna Drijver), the most vivid and hard-driving of the three, is an aspiring fashion designer whose Jewish family was murdered by the Nazis. The moment she meets her fiancé, he lays down the law and insists that she follow strict Jewish customs. She dumps him in a flash. She also happens to be pregnant by another man.

Ada (Karina Smulders), also pregnant, by a fiancé she has met only once, dutifully marries him only to discover that he is a humorless Christian prig. On the plane to Christchurch, she meets and falls in love with Frank (Waldemar Torenstra), who lost his family in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp and is moving to New Zealand to be a farmer. The hunky stuff of bodice-ripping fantasy, Frank maintains a correspondence with Ada after she becomes the unhappily married mother of several children.

As the wheel of fortune spins, the sensible Marjorie (Elise Schaap) wins the marital lottery and lands an attractive, loving husband. But their bliss is cut short when a complicated pregnancy leaves her childless and infertile. Esther rushes to the rescue and gives her baby to the couple to raise as their own. What tensions exist among the three friends over the years mostly have to do with Esther’s possessiveness of her biological son whenever they all reunite.

“Bride Flight” is a nice, well-behaved period piece that looks pretty and smells fresh and sweet when brought home from the cinematic laundry. On closer inspection, however, it is riddled with spots and stains and even a few holes.

“Bride Flight” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has sexual situations and nudity.

BRIDE FLIGHT

Opens on Friday in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Directed by Ben Sombogaart; written by Marieke van der Pol; director of photography, Piotr Kukla; produced by Anton Smit and Hanneke Niens; released by Music Box Films. In Dutch and English, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes.

WITH: Karina Smulders (Ada), Elise Schaap (Marjorie), Anna Drijver (Esther), Waldemar Torenstra (Frank), Rutger Hauer (Old Frank), Pleuni Touw (Old Ada), Petra Laseur (Old Marjorie), Willeke van Ammelrooy (Old Esther) and Mattijn Hartemink (Hans).

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Bride Flight Reviews

Ignore the title, bring your reading glasses, and give it a try.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2021

It's a stubbornly pedestrian art house beach read, a yuppie book club selection of a film that entertains in the moment but is forgotten just as quickly.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 5, 2019

A straight-up romance that does a nice job of capturing the period, though the three lives of the main female characters stand out as obvious "types."

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 29, 2011

Smug and unconvincing, this 2008 period drama from the Netherlands is the sort of movie that defines an era solely by its prejudices, on the implicit assumption that we'll applaud the central characters for their modern attitudes.

Full Review | Dec 13, 2011

"Bride Flight" is undeniably pretty to look at, and the performers do what they can (Drivjer is quite good as the brash Esther). But it's too silly and overheated to be accepted as fact or fiction.

Full Review | Sep 6, 2011

The movie plods along at a lethargic pace, with occasional flashes of energy in the performances the only things keeping it afloat.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 26, 2011

Director Ben Sombogaart doles out surprise revelations steeped in irony with a multi-layered approach. The movie is sad, hopeful and uplifting. Strengths include the gorgeous cinematography, meticulous art direction capturing the look of the...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 6, 2011

This very pretty melodrama is a rather ordinary entry.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 14, 2011

Glossy feminist medlodrama, which could justly be described as Ross Hunter Reborn.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jul 11, 2011

Aside from its period New Zealand setting, there is little to distinguish Bride Flight from something you might watch briefly on Lifetime, then change the channel.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2011

The events in the plot are the stuff of soap opera, but the movie treats it seriously, and the acting is convincing enough that we forgive the story and begin to care about the characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 30, 2011

Lovely scenery and historical context elevate the sentimental story lines above the soap opera domain.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 24, 2011

A tearjerking romance that belongs to another era, when female moviegoers wanted to be transported, not grounded in grim realities.

For anyone who shrugs at today's movies and thinks "they don't make 'em like they used to," here's a classy, good-looking chick flick in the old-school tradition.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 23, 2011

Stuffy and a bit predictable from the outside, this nicely mounted Dutch melodrama eventually blossoms if one gives it time and an open heart and mind, due to the strength of its characterizations.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jun 18, 2011

I find it hard to believe there will be a worse movie performance this year than the one Elise Schaap inflicts on us in the Dutch "Bride Flight."

Full Review | Original Score: 0/4 | Jun 17, 2011

Time-bending crosscutting confuses connections rather than enriching the narrative, and robs it of the emotional payoff that you can otherwise get only in a second viewing.

Full Review | Jun 16, 2011

"Bride Flight'' is the sort of old-fashioned women's picture they stopped making around the time Christina Crawford had to put away the wire hangers.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 16, 2011

One should never discount the appeal of pretty people in pretty places.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 16, 2011

It's compelling in a middling miniseries kind of way -- expansive but not terribly deep.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jun 16, 2011

Movie review: ‘Bride Flight’

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It’s been a while since one of those sweeping historical dramas wrapped around a tale of star-crossed lovers has come along. The new Dutch film “Bride Flight” is satisfying in that way, weaving together the fates of four young Dutch strangers caught up in the post-WWII migration to New Zealand. Fiancés await the three girls; adventure the guy; all in a land they believe holds infinite promise.

Director Ben Sombogaart begins the story in the present day with a wonderfully weathered Frank (veteran actor Rutger Hauer playing a rugged youth in his later years) surveying his vineyards, stopping in to taste the latest vintage. Soon, three women — scattered around the world and defined by different lives — are opening letters with news of Frank that will bring them together again. The answers to the mystery raised by those first few scenes will come in time as the filmmaker takes us back to the start of the story.

The year is 1953. Holland has been devastated by war and ravaged by floods when the so-called “Last Great Air Race” between London and Christchurch, New Zealand, is set to begin. One of the planes in the contest is the Flying Dutchman, which the media quickly dubs “Bride Flight” because so many of its passengers are young women flying to meet their intended. It’s a bit like the ‘50s version of a party plane to Vegas, champagne pouring and freedom in the air. The parents have been left behind and the responsibilities of their new lives remain in the distance.

The four — Ada (Karina Smulders), Marjorie (Elise Schaap), Esther (Anna Drijver) and Frank (Waldemar Torenstra) — meet in the exciting flush of takeoff, with their lives bound together by the time the 37-hour journey ends. Their stories are rooted in a blend of historical accounts, interviews with those who made the trip and the imagination of screenwriter Marieke van der Pol. The result is a complex story of love and loss and the sorts of painful compromises that the real world usually demands.

The movie’s central story starts with the fire between Frank and Ada, who as seatmates for the trip find time to fall in love. That the ride has its share of turbulence is both reality and a foreshadowing of what is to come. Watching Torenstra and Smulders take their characters from a tentative first conversation to heated passion and stolen kisses to the realization that they are doomed before they even begin, is to be reminded of the intense romantic friction that movies at their best can still create. At times their chemistry burns up the screen, with a particularly excellent erotic scene earning the film its R-rating while a far more troubling moment of spousal abuse didn’t even register a mention. Go figure.

The four émigrés are an eclectic group and represent the diversity in the ranks of that particular Dutch pioneering wave. Esther, who lost her family in a German death camp and wants to forget her Jewish roots, pours herself into fashion design. She’s sharp as a tack and three steps ahead of everyone else in Drijver’s hands. Ada is all soft focus, a face wringed by wisps of blond curls and framed by mournful eyes. Though she bends to a rigid religion and a cold marriage, Smulders lets us see the struggle in every step she takes. Marjorie is the straight arrow in the bunch. All she wants is husband, hearth and kids, but her son comes with a heavy emotional price. Frank is a rogue with the sort of hunky, vintage Ralph Lauren look that can be distraction, but Torenstra is talented and makes him mesmerizing as he turns the fallow land into a vintner’s dream, with or without his shirt on.

Time is painted in various shades, with the director and cinematographer Piotr Kukla using a different palette as the years pass — sepia for the flight itself, warm colors for the early years in New Zealand, intense sunlight and sharp hues for present day. Most of the film is spent in the beautiful haze of the ‘50s and ‘60s. That is where “Bride Flight” is at its strongest; as the fortunes of businesses and relationships rise and fall and the bonds between Ester, Ada, Marjorie and Frank are tested, and sometimes broken.

Sombogaart, who has spent much of his career in the documentary world, never loses sight of the way in which history impacts the individuals who live through it. But the searing romance between Ada and Frank is what interests him most and what ultimately holds this intimate epic together. That proves both a strength and a weakness — making the times they are together sweeter but bringing frustration when their story gives way to someone else’s. As to the taming of a new frontier? Well, the problems of New Zealand really don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

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‘Bride Flight’

MPAA rating: R for a strong sex scene and some graphic nudity

Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes; Dutch and English with English subtitles

Playing: In selected theaters

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Bride flight: film review.

The sort of sweeping romantic saga rarely attempted on our shores these days, the Dutch film Bride Flight should well please art house audiences.

By THR Staff

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NEW YORK — Imagine a European version of the sort of soapy weepie that would have starred Bette Davis and Clark Gable had it been made in Hollywood decades ago, and you have Bride Flight . One of the most expensive films ever made in the Netherlands, it is also notable for the brief appearance by Rutger Hauer , his first in a Dutch feature in over twenty-five years.

The sort of sweeping romantic saga rarely attempted on our shores these days, Bride Flight should well please art house audiences, especially of older females, starved for this sort of old-fashioned fare. Marieke van der Pol’s screenplay is overly convoluted as it careens across several decades, crammed with superfluous scenes, yet it does manage for the most part to remain believable. At the heart of the film beats a love story that begins in 1953 when the dashing young Frank ( Waldemar Torenstra ) boards a record-breaking flight from London to New Zealand. Inspired by an actual event dubbed the “bride flight,” the plane is crowded with Dutch women traveling to be reunited with fiancés and husbands.

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Among them are three young women whose lives would intersect with Frank over the decades: Jewish fashion designer Esther ( Anna Drijver ); Marjorie ( Elise Schaap ), whose husband awaits her; and Ada ( Karina Smulders ), pregnant and married to a man she has met only once.

During the long, tumultuous flight, Ada and Frank fall in love. Upon arrival though, she dutifully reconnects with her husband ( Micha Hulsof ), a strictly religious Christian. She will bear him three children.

Years later, Ada, trapped in a loveless marriage, impulsively abandons her husband and children to be with Frank, with predictably tragic results.

The overly convoluted screenplay awkwardly inserts numerous scenes throughout depicting elderly versions of the characters (Hauer plays the older Frank), which only serve to pad the running time to a stodgy 130 minutes.

Despite its overly melodramatic plot elements, the emotional dynamics of the film directed by Ben Sombogaart are admirably restrained. And despite a contrived ending that glosses over decades of animosities, the proceedings mostly stay on an even keel.

Fueling the power of the central love story are highly appealing performances by the two leads. Torenstra makes a dashing leading man, effortlessly combining macho sex appeal with emotional depth, while the beautiful Smulders is deeply sympathetic as the tortured Ada. When their characters finally consummate their love after a decade of longing, the sex scene carries genuine heat.

Opened: June 10 (Music Box Films) Production: IDTV Film Cast: Karina Smulders, Elise Schapp, Anna Drijver, Waldemar Torenstra, Rutger Hauer, Pleuni Touw, Petra Laseur, Willede van Ammelrooy, Mattijn Hartemink Director: Ben Sombogaart Screenwriter: Marieke van der Pol Producers: Anton Smit, Hanneke Niens Director of photography: Piotr Kukla Production designer: Michel De Graaf Costume designer: Linda Bogers Music: Jeannot Sanavia Editor: Herman P. Koerts Rated R, 130 minutes

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'Bride Flight' review: Three friends find marriage isn't what they expected

• Published: Jun. 10, 2011, 12:01 p.m.
• Stephen Whitty | For Inside Jersey

Three girls, one city, endless adventures.

It’s been a movie template forever, as one female trio after another — almost invariably comprising blond, brunette and redhead — jumped together into a new world, then went their separate exciting ways.

Over the years we’ve had different groups explore acting, publishing, nursing, summer break, “flying the friendly skies” and hunting for millionaires. Plenty of tears (and a few laughs) usually ensued.

The new “Bride Flight” is just as enjoyable, in its way — and far more serious.

Beginning in the early ’50s and continuing to the present, it introduces us to three young Dutch women on a flight to New Zealand. All have husbands or fiancés waiting for them, along with the chance of a life far from old, war-wrecked Europe.

Of course, things don’t quite work out that way.

Movie Review

Bride Flight (R) Music Box (130 min.) Directed by Ben Sombogaart. With Anna Drijver, Karina Smulders, Elise Schaap. In Dutch and English, with English subtitles. Rating note: The film contains nudity, sexual situations, strong language and violenc Stephen Whitty's Review: THREE AND A HALF STARS

One woman will get pregnant when she doesn’t want to. Another will find herself cruelly unable to conceive. The third will discover that holy monogamy is a lot harder to practice than to preach.

Anna Drijver is Esther, the Jewish bohemian who soon becomes intent on making her own life, alone. Elise Schaap is Marjorie, the good middle-class housewife who clings to convention. Karina Smulders is the lovely Ada, a too-innocent farm girl who arrives in this brave new world only to discover her marriage bed is in a cement hut, and her marital role is strictly to love, honor and obey.

But mostly obey.

Once the women land in New Zealand they go off on their own lives — and we go with them. Tying them together is the handsome Frank (Waldemar Torenstra) — whose funeral, in the present day, brings a final reunion of the by-now-warring friends, and some closure.

The New Zealand locations are terrific, as are these mostly-unknown-to-America faces (although tireless Rutger Hauer shows up as old Frank). Less effective is some of the back-and-forth storytelling, and the music (which can be overpowering).

But what’s truly moving here are the characters, who all feel real enough to make you want to shout an occasional warning, like a fan in a horror movie. Except this time it’s not “Don’t go in the basement!” but “Don’t marry him!” Or “Quick, tell her the truth!”

But, of course, they never listen to us.

With its brightly colored tapestry of marriage, babies, death and secret passion, “Bride Flight” is the sort of hyper-emotional story that many critics — mostly men — will dismiss. A “chick flick,” they’ll call it. A “soap opera.” Or, with grudging kindness, “a melodrama.”

But a melodrama is a drama that’s been badly done. “Bride Flight” is done terrifically.

MORE STEPHEN WHITTY 'One Lucky Elephant' details search for new home for former circus elephant 'Love, Wedding, Marriage' review: Formulaic romantic comedy about marriage counselor with divorcing parents goes astray very quickly 'Beginners' preview: Director tries to shake things up, without much success, in 'beginners'

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Bride Flight

Time out says.

One of the priciest Dutch-language films ever made, Bride Flight has the hard shell of a stuffy period piece and the gratifyingly gooey center of a globetrotting, decade-spanning melodrama. Three prospective brides meet the dashing Frank (Torenstra, a charismatic heartthrob with disarmingly prominent ears), aboard a 1953 KLM flight competing in the London-Christchurch air race. Though the ladies are all leaving the Netherlands for New Zealand to marry their waiting fiancs, this handsome stranger will end up changing all of their lives---especially the pretty, pregnant Ada (Smulders), who's promised to a strict Protestant.

Relocation aside, the options are limited for the era's females: family-focused Marjorie (Schaap) feels worthless when her own childbearing goes awry; free-spirited Esther (Drijver) faces prejudice due to her lifestyle choices; and Ada is stuck in a loveless marriage. Trauma from WWII haunts each character, but even the historical foregrounding doesn't keep Ben Sombogaart's weepie from being more soapy than serious. A secret adoption pact, surprisingly racy sex scenes and one frantic run through an airport while brandishing a menorah add up to a sometimes silly but enjoyable experience. As for the present-day framing story involving three women and a funeral, it's primarily notable for offering a brief glimpse of Rutger Hauer in his first role in a Dutch feature in more than two decades.

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Bride Flight

A devil-may-care adventurer and three vastly different gals emigrate from the Low Countries to New Zealand in the romantic epic "Bride Flight," a glossy European meller that switches between the '50s, the '60s and the present.

By Boyd van Hoeij

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A devil-may-care adventurer and three vastly different gals emigrate from the Low Countries to New Zealand in the romantic epic “Bride Flight ,” a glossy European meller that switches between the ’50s, the ’60s and the present. One of the most expensive Dutch-language productions ever, and made by the same team behind Oscar-nommed “Twin Sisters” (another time-and-country-hopping tale about rocky female bonding), “Flight” also features a strong male protag in beefcake du jour Waldemar Torenstra. Local B.O. should be more than decent for this mid-October release, with limited arthouse play possible abroad and Euro tube sales a given.

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Rather than grafting perfunctory love stories onto male-oriented actioners, helmer Ben Sombogaart and scripter Marieke van der Pol make crowdpleasing, vaguely post-feminist women’s pictures with background material that could lure male viewers as well (the war in “Twin Sisters,” planes in “Flight”). The starting point for van der Pol’s original screenplay is a 1953 air race that was won by a Dutch plane.

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On the so-called “Bride Flight” — because it carried women joining their fiances in New Zealand — are outgoing fashion designer Esther (Anna Drijver), shy yet sensual farm girl Ada (Karina Smulders) and staid, family-minded Marjorie (Elise Schaap). They immediately bond, mainly because all three are being ogled by cowboy Frank (Torenstra).

After their arrival, the narrative is held together by two strong story arcs. Ada and Frank fall in love, despite the fact she’s pregnant by her strictly religious better half (Micha Hulshof), with whom she lives in a transformed WWII-era bunker. And Marjorie and Esther solve two problems at once, as one of them can’t have children and the other has an unplanned pregnancy by a mystery man.

Screenplay’s only awkward elements are Marjorie’s underdeveloped character and the way in which Esther’s Jewish heritage is handled.

Action is framed by a few scenes set in the present. Now in their 70s, the women meet again at the funeral of Frank (Rutger Hauer). Tension rises when Esther (Willeke van Ammelrooy, the matriarch in “Antonia’s Line”) sees Marjorie (Petra Laseur) with her son Bob ( Marc Klein Essink), nicely encapsulating pic’s central idea that past and present are inextricably linked.

As in “Twin Sisters,” a veneer of nostalgia, plus excellent lensing and acting, make the soap-opera plot play on the bigscreen. Smulders (“Wolfsbergen”), especially, gives a moving, multilayered performance as the most complex of the three gals, and she has palpable chemistry with Torenstra, whose matinee-idol looks are perfect for Frank. Hauer’s almost wordless cameo adds some much-needed gravitas.

Editing, again by Herman P. Koerts, and clever casting keeps the plot easily readable throughout. Period production and costume design are unusually strong for a Dutch pic, with locations in New Zealand blending seamlessly with work done in Luxembourg. Jeannot Sanavia’s score is serviceable but bland.

Netherlands

• Production: An A-Film release of an IDTV Film production, in association with Samsa Film, NCRV. (International sales: IDTV Film, Amsterdam.) Produced by Anton Smit, Hanneke Niens. Co-producers, Jani Thiltges, Gemma Derksen. Directed by Ben Sombogaart. Screenplay, Marieke van der Pol.
• Crew: Camera (color, widescreen), Piotr Kukla; editor, Herman P. Koerts; music, Jeannot Sanavia; production designer, Michel de Graaf; costume designer, Linda Bogers; sound (Dolby Digital), Erik Langhout; special effects, Filmmore; associate producer, Olga Madsen; assistant director, Anielle Webster; casting, Marina Wijn. Reviewed at Pand Noord, Amsterdam, June 24, 2008. Running time: 130 MIN.
• With: With: Karina Smulders, Elise Schaap, Anna Drijver, Waldemar Torenstra, Rutger Hauer, Pleuni Touw, Petra Laseur, Willeke van Ammelrooy, Micha Hulshof, Marc Klein Essink. (Dutch, English dialogue)

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<i>Bride Flight</i> Review

Read. Surf. Think.

This is an absurdly melodramatic, improbable, romantic, guilty pleasure of a movie. Complete with corny music, more throbbing of propellers whirling on airplanes than any film since Casablanca and with two of the most fecund female characters since the Catholic League's Sex Education tapes warning against the dangers of premarital sex.

It's loosely based on a historic event: an airplane race from London to New Zealand in 1953. The Dutch entrant also delivering war brides from shattered Holland to barely known grooms who had already made the trek to a new life. Photographer's flash bulbs pop and reporters shout questions to the young women as they board, the plane's engines roar, and we all buckle in for a movie that has quite a story to tell.

Even before the stewardesses offer the passengers drinks and snacks we have time-traveled several times: young lovers fall in love; a man dies; dreams are shared; the young become old, and with the magic of movies, are young again. Heartbreak, birth and death, steamy sex scenes, family secrets, Japanese atrocities in the Dutch East Indies, religious zealotry, friendships broken (did I mention steamy sex scenes?), all march across the the screen. Bride Flight shows the best and worst of our celluloid heroines as nobility and venality play their usual roles.

It's a very human story.

Making the melodrama profound is the reality of what happened to young men and women like these fictional characters: the reality of what Holland experienced in World War II. Over 200,000 Dutch men, women, and children died during the war. 75% of Holland's Jewish population was murdered. It was one of the last countries in Europe to be liberated from the Nazis. During the Hongerwinter of 1944-45, when the war was virtually over, more than 18,000 starved to death in a few short months. I have an older Dutch friend, in his early teens then, who suffered through it all. He told me of the Allied planes in Operation Manna that appeared one day and dropped food from the sky. It was a miracle, and he has never forgotten it. Indeed I think his incredible joie de vivre, his humor and love of music, his easy manner all stem from the irony of his survival. Or the woman from Amsterdam I met years ago in Las Vegas, brilliant and uber chic, getting tears in her eyes telling the stories she had heard of relatives greeting young American paratroopers, so healthy and strong, so devil may care, as they liberated towns during Operation Market Garden. But, only a few days of freedom as we saw in Band of Brothers . Her aunts and uncles, the joyous people who celebrated a moment of freedom, condemned to savage reprisals and months more of occupation when the Americans were driven back by German counterattacks.

That history, gives Bride Flight a depth beyond its melodrama. If there had been no war these women would have followed a traditional path to life, to marriage, to motherhood. But, no, such lives were not to be. There was nothing for them at home, so they were forced by fate to seek happiness a world away. Chance meetings on a plane create the plot; choices made in moments impact all that follows. Fictional characters mirroring our own choices and improbable lives: a succession of what ifs.

I have read a number of dismissive reviews of Bride Flight . Sappy, sentimental, improbable, a soufflé not a steak, they write. But those critics give no weight to the historical context motivating the characters. Those critics, wearing their hipitude on their sleeves, thinking cold is cool, moved by technique not emotion, no doubt hating Bambi to show solidarity with PETA, are but outcast men. As in the best books and movies, as in Bride Flight , the fundamental things apply: love, love lost, love unrequited, children, the quest for happiness, war and death, mistakes magnified by the passing years, women and men, but, in this movie, mostly women and the choices forced upon them by society and circumstance.

There are several set pieces in the film, underlined with overly dramatic music, disclosing why some things are what they are. The young Jewish woman, profoundly affected by her improbable survival, tries to be hard but is, as we all are, flesh and blood. She tries to say goodbye to all that, but to quote another: the body moves on, the mind circles the past.

The handsome young man, so full of life and good humor, cocksure in more than the traditional definition, the center of much of the story, carries the war in his shirt pocket as he creates a new life in a bright new country that takes in damaged goods and makes damaged lives whole.

It is, as I say, an old school movie.

I tried to remember other Dutch films I have seen and realized that they are all about the war: Soldier of Orange , Black Book , and now Bride Flight . It would seem that beyond the gaiety of Amsterdam with its brown bars, hash bars and cold Heinekens, the young and old remember. They remember Ann Frank. They are the grandchildren and great grandchildren of those who lived through times unimaginable, but imagined in Bride Flight . Indeed imagined by the audience at the Music Box on a Saturday afternoon. The movie making us feel for a mother who gave up her child, for a woman who married but loves another, for a man who spent his childhood in hell and the rest of his life trying to create heaven.

It would take a hard heart to be dismissive of Bride Flight , I found Henry James to be instructive as I watched it:

"Never say you know the last word about any human heart..."

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Bride Flight: movie review

The romantic drama 'Bride Flight' charts the lives of three Dutch women who travel to New Zealand as war brides.

• By Peter Rainer Film critic

June 10, 2011

The aerial transports of the 1950s that carried Dutch women to New Zealand to meet up with their émigré fiancés is given the respectable treatment in “Bride Flight,” one of the most expensive films ever from the Netherlands . Switching between the 1950s, the '60s, and the present, it’s compelling in a middling miniseries kind of way – expansive but not terribly deep.

Director Ben Sombogaart focuses on three women: Esther ( Anna Drijver ), a Jewish fashion designer whose family was wiped out in the Holocaust; Ada ( Karina Smulders ), a shy farm girl; and the uptight Marjorie ( Elise Schaap ). All are enamored of the muscular cowboy Frank ( Waldemar Torenstra ) who has come over with them.

The entire movie flashes back from Frank’s present-day demise, and since Frank as an old man is played by Rutger Hauer , we don’t have to be sold on the man’s macho credentials. Too bad Hauer doesn’t have more screen time, especially since this is apparently his first appearance in a Dutch movie in many a moon. Grade: B- (Rated R for a strong sex scene and some graphic nudity.)

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Review: bride flight.

Ben Sombogaart’s film is sorely lacking in any kind of empathetic payoff.

A director can make the scope of his or her film as alternatively large or as intimate as one might please, lade the movie’s subject matter with all the big themes in the world, and fill out the proceedings with weepy strings and meaningful glances, but if the characters don’t register with the viewer, the result is likely to be yawning indifference. That is, of course, provided the film seeks its effects within the confines of traditional character-based plotting, and, for all its temporal cross-cutting and narrative elisions, Ben Sombogaart’s decades-spanning multi-character drama Bride Flight does exactly that.

The story of three young Dutch women and one young man emigrating to New Zealand in search of a better life after WWII, the film begins aboard an airplane as the four characters meet. The women flirt with handsome Frank (Waldemar Torenstra), but, as the trio are all either married or engaged and on their way to meet their would-be husbands (as were many other young ladies on the real-life trip, thus the nickname “the bride flight”), they engage in little more than a cuddle or a kiss. Arriving in Christchurch, one woman marries happily, one unhappily, and one not at all, jilting her husband at the altar, but all end up keeping in touch with each other and with Frank.

As the years go by (and Sombogaart repeatedly cuts back and forth from the present day in which the women attend the recently deceased Frank’s funeral), no shortage of drama abounds. Feisty Esther (Anna Drijver), pregnant but unwilling to bring a child into the world after the Holocaust has claimed the life of her entire family, gives up her baby to the barren Marjorie (Elise Schaap), a decision the former woman will take her whole life to come to terms with. Meanwhile, miserable Ada (Karina Smulders) flees her husband’s religious fanatic family for a chance of happiness with Frank.

It’s all very tastefully handled by Sombogaart, shot in plenty of staid compositions whose denuded color scheme suggests a historical remove, but it rarely generates any heat, even during a pair of graphic, but not particularly erotic sex scenes. That’s because, while each of the three women are given their particular dilemmas, none are sufficiently fleshed out beyond the demands of these limited situations. The camera lingers frequently over the face of Ada, caught between the twin poles of desire and family/duty/God, and Smulders does her best to convey a combination of dissatisfaction and yearning, but even with the cue-emotion musical accompaniment, her situation feels more schematic than authentically alive.

Esther fares only slightly better as her feistiness is redirected toward her maternal desire for her abandoned son, while neither Marjorie nor Frank are ever defined beyond a single characteristic (love of family and convention and cool insouciance, respectively). As such, Sombogaart’s handling of Marieke van der Pol’s knotty script may be a skillful bit of narrative maneuvering, but it all seems like an empty exercise, one sorely lacking in any kind of empathetic payoff.

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Andrew Schenker is an essayist and critic living in upstate New York. His writing has appeared in The Baffler , The Village Voice , Artforum , Bookforum , The Los Angeles Review of Books , and others.

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Bride flight.

In 1953, a KLM (Dutch Airways) flight participated in an air race from London to Christchurch, New Zealand. KLM wins the race. On board the plane are three women passengers on their way to arranged marriages to husbands-to-be that they hardly know. The three become fast friends during the long journey halfway around the world in what the international press named the “Bride Flight.”

Laura's Review: B

In 1953 post-war Holland people were facing tough housing and job markets when they were also hit by devastating floods. Many decided to emigrate and when KLM announced it was taking part in the 'Last Great Air Race' from London to Christchurch New Zealand, so many women who took part were following husbands and fiancees to New Zealand, the winning plane became known as the "Bride Flight." Just because a film is partially subtitled, playing at the independent art house and written (Marieke van der Pol) and directed (Ben Sombogaart) by the team behind the Foreign Language Film nominee "Twin Sisters" doesn't mean it's an artsy film. "Bride Flight" is like a sprawling summer beach read, a cliche-ridden soap opera that nonetheless works due to great location photography, good acting and solid direction. Van der Pol's script could have been ripped from a 40's 'women's picture,' with its three dramatically different female protagonists tied forever together by one man, but the fact that it is a tale of immigration sprinkled through with elements from real stories of the people who pioneered a new life freshens it up. I was expecting "Bride Flight" to be about the actual race, but that only takes up about the first fifteen minutes of the 130 minute run time. We don't even learn who else was in the race, nor that KLM's 'Flying Dutchman' was an English Electric Canberra bomber outfitted for passengers or that it took them 37 hours and 30 minutes. Instead the titular journey is used to establish the film's four main characters, one of whom, Frank (Waldemar Torenstra), we've seen die in his vineyards in present day played by Rutger Hauer in a prologue. Frank is the son of a doctor who lost his family in Japanese camps in Indonesia. He's gotten an agricultural degree and is heading to a new life where he plans to start a farm. Esther (Anna Drijver, later Willeke van Ammelrooy, "Antonia's Line") is a fashion designer whom we gradually learn lost her entire family in Auschwitz. She has a fiance waiting, but she dumps him quickly when he attempts to make her entire life about her faith. Marjorie (Elise Schaap, in her debut, Petra Laseur as the elder) posed for a magazine cover in her wedding dress before takeoff and is looking forward to raising a large family. They all turn to Frank's deadly shy but beautiful seatmate and learn that Ada (Karina Smulders/Pleuni Touw) is from farming stock. The central romance blooms at 30,000 feet. But Frank is devastated to learn that Ada has already been married by proxy - and she's even more forlorn when, after Frank's wooing, her Calvinist husband Derk (Micha Hulshof) expects her to ride for six hours in a truck flatbed so that there minister (Hans Man in 't Veld, resembling Laurence Olivier in "Marathon Man") can ride shotgun. Home turns out to be a WWII bunker fixer upper and Ada is shamed on her wedding night for her sensuality. Meanwhile, back in Christchurch, Esther makes a play for Frank that turns out to be a one night stand while Marjorie's initial dislike of her new home is overcome. When her initial pregnancy goes tragically wrong, rendering her barren, guess who turns up single and pregnant? The movie shuttles back and forth from the present, where the three woman receive the news of Frank's death and all make their way towards his funeral. The 1953 events fade and are picked up again ten years later, when Majorie and her husband Hans (Mattijn Hartemink) comes across Esther opening a stylish shop - with their son Bobby (Mykola Allen) - and Ada runs away from home into Frank's arms. And so we have the unhappy wife with three children, the happily married woman who wants kids but cannot have them and the single career woman, the three woman plot convention used from "Three Coins in the Fountain" through "Valley of the Dolls" and "Sex and the City." But these actresses, from newcomer Schaap to model Drijver to the more experienced Smulders make their differences and shared 'stranger in a strange land' experience real and casting has done an amazing job matching the younger to the elder. Sombogaart keeps a check on the overt melodrama and also does a fine job contrasting the time periods, the 1950's given a more old-fashioned look than the crisper, brighter present. The flying models used for the race sequence are particularly smart looking in the not quite realistic way of films of the time. We also see an entire country grow up along with the characters. True, van der Pol's screenplay plots it course too obviously (Ada views Bobby in pain in a hospital - cue guilt over her children back home, etc.), but Sombogaart's production feels grounded in reality nonetheless. "Bride Flight" is an epic, modern historical romance that works.

Robin's Review: B+

The title is a bit of a misnomer as the record breaking 20000km KLM flight is only lightly touched upon early in the film. That event, though, is the catalyst that brings together Ada (Karina Smulders), Esther (Anna Drijver) and Marjorie (Elise Schaap). Each has a reason for immigrating to New Zealand: For Ada, it is to become a country farm wife to her betrothed, Derk (Micha Hulshof); Marjorie wants to have children and raise a large family; and, Esther wants to be an upscale fashion designer. However, all will be affected when they meet handsome Frank (Waldemar Torenstra) on their epic flight across the globe. This is a grand, sweeping yarn that wears its pro-femme heart on its sleeve. The women, beautiful all, are strong but each has her own flaws, and each involves Frank. The complicated dynamics of these four people as their paths cross and cross again is too tightly woven to give more than a cursory synopsis. The story, by sophomore feature scribe Marieke van der Pol, deftly defines each of the characters to be flesh and blood people. Veteran Dutch director Ben Sombogaart takes the fine screenplay, that spans decades, and, with his terrific cast, creates an epic that draws in the viewer. The production, said to be the most expensive Dutch film made to date, is opulent in costume, location and period detail as the story moves from the 1950s to the 60s and beyond. “Bride Flight” is bookended by the present day where Frank (Rutger Hauer) is a successful vintner in the New Zealand wine country. Over half a century before, when he arrived in his new land, he set forth to fulfill his dream. Frank worked tirelessly to build his vineyard and wine business but, while driving through his land for home, he has a spell, drives off the road and dies. The three women, now scattered across the country, are invited to Frank’s funeral. Their reunion triggers memories for all three and the story dissolves back to the very beginning as the three women board the airplane of their destiny. The remarkable casting of the young and old Ada, Marjorie and Esther - the elder women are played by Pleuni Touw, Petra Laseur and Willeke van Ammelrooy, respectively – makes the transition from the 50s to the present seamless. Again, quality writing, directing and acting shows. “Bride Flight” is really a personal story but told in epic proportions and one that needs be seen.

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BRIDE FLIGHT

"plodding relationship drama".

What You Need To Know:

BRIDE FLIGHT is a character-driven story from the Netherlands. Three women board the Flying Dutchman on its record-breaking flight from Holland to New Zealand after World War II. Ada’s meeting her soon-to-be husband, a devout, reformed Christian who sinned and impregnated her. Now, he’s flying her down to make an honest woman of her. On the flight, she sits beside Frank. Frank’s passion for life inspires Ada and makes her question her pending nuptials. Meanwhile, Marjorie is headed to meet up with the man of her dreams, and Esther is going to open up a designer clothing store. Marjorie is unable to bear children, so when Esther becomes pregnant from a drunken encounter with Frank, she gives the baby to Marjorie and her husband, who adopt the baby. As years pass by, the women look back on how Frank impacted their lives.

Though beautifully shot, BRIDE FLIGHT is a plodding relationship drama that’s largely uninteresting, with no rewarding finish. The movie contains strong sexual content, explicit nudity and a Romantic worldview with a very negative view of the first woman’s Christian husband. Media-wise viewers probably will not like BRIDE FLIGHT.

(RoRo, ABAB, B, C, Fe, FR, Pa, L, VV, SS, NNN, A, D, MM) Strong Romantic worldview overall with immoral anti-biblical behavior throughout as well as a strongly negative view of a religious husband as jealous and close-minded and a woman daydreams about another man during her wedding ceremony, but some moral and religious characters depicted, Scripture quoted, a Christian wedding, and Jewish practices depicted, feminist character decries religious tradition, and mention of a Greek goddess; four obscenities and two profanities; some intense and light violence includes a mild car accident as man has heart attack while driving, an elderly woman collapses, punching, kicking, gun shot, a woman loses her child during pregnancy, another woman mentions abortion, woman screams during labor, husband grabs his wife forcefully because she rejects him sexually, and a story of suicide; strong sexual content includes depicted adultery, several instances of implied fornication, sexual dialogue, unmarried kissing, woman admits to getting pregnant out of wedlock, married kissing, groping, single mother gives her baby away to a friend unable to have children; full female nudity, upper female nudity, upper male nudity; alcohol use depicted and man owns a wine vineyard; cigarette smoking throughout the movie; and, lying, jealousy and very immoral characters throughout.

More Detail:

BRIDE FLIGHT is a character-driven story from the Netherlands of three women, Ada, Esther and Marjorie, and how their lives are forever intertwined because of their relationship with Frank, whom they all met on a shared flight from Holland to New Zealand after WW II. The story intercuts between contemporary times as the three women reunite at Frank’s funeral and flashbacks of when they left Europe as war brides to settle in New Zealand.

The three women board the Flying Dutchman on its record-breaking flight from Holland to New Zealand. Ada is going to meet up with her soon-to-be husband. He’s a devout, reformed Christian who sinned with Ada and impregnated her. Now, he wants to fly her down to make an honest woman of her. Ada is nervous she will not find happiness with his guilt-ridden religious fervor. On the flight, she sits beside Frank, and his passion for life inspires Ada and makes her question her pending nuptials.

Meanwhile, Marjorie is headed to meet up with the man of her dreams, and Esther is going to open up a store of designer clothing. However, their various lives are not without pain of their own. Marjorie is unable to bear children, and Esther cannot find a love of her own. One night, Esther and Frank have a drunken affair, and Esther becomes pregnant. To ease Marjorie’s pain, she gives the newborn to Marjorie and her husband, who adopt the little one.

[SPOILERS ALERT] As the years pass, Ada and Frank’s love goes unrequited, Esther feels disconnected from her daughter, and Marjorie becomes overly protective of her adopted daughter’s love. The man who draws the women’s friendship together is the same man who seems to be tearing them apart. When they meet again at Frank’s funeral, they are able to look back and celebrate their complicated history together.

Though beautifully shot, BRIDE FLIGHT is a plodding relationship drama that’s largely uninteresting. The pace is slow, which is fitting for this particular character-driven piece, but the characters are not dynamic. The movie becomes a wearisome tale with no character growth and no rewarding finish.

The movie also has strong sexual content and explicit nudity. It also has a largely mixed, Romantic worldview with immoral relationships and a very negative view of Ada’s husband as a repressive Christian. Finally, BRIDE FLIGHT has brief intense violence and brief foul language, along with miscellaneous immoral behavior such as lying and jealousy.

Bride Flight Movie

A forbidden love. An impossible choice. A secret pact.

Who's Involved:

Rutger Hauer, Waldemar Torenstra, Elise Schaap, Karina Smulders, Anna Drijver, Ben Sombogaart

Release Date:

Friday, June 10, 2011 Limited

Plot: What's the story about?

Three young women – Ada (Karina Smulders), Esther (Anna Drijver), and Marjorie (Elise Schaap) – emigrate from post-WWII Holland to New Zealand for what they hope will be a better life. They are all awaited by their fiancés, who have already settled in Christchurch. On the plane trip overseas – dubbed the 'Bride Flight' – the three become fast friends and meet a dashing young man, Frank (Waldemar Torenstra), who will come to play a large role in each of their lives.

official plot version from musicboxfilms.com

3.43 / 5 stars ( 7 users)

Poll: Will you see Bride Flight?

Who stars in Bride Flight: Cast List

Waldemar Torenstra

Anna Drijver

Karina Smulders

Speak No Evil  

Elise Schaap

Rutger Hauer

The Sisters Brothers, The Rite  

Who's making Bride Flight: Crew List

A look at the Bride Flight behind-the-scenes crew and production team. The film's director Ben Sombogaart last directed My Best Friend Anne Frank .

Ben Sombogaart

Screenwriters

Music Box Films

Production Companies

Watch bride flight trailers & videos.

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Production: What we know about Bride Flight?

Filming timeline.

• 2004 - December : The film was set to Completed  status.

Bride Flight Release Date: When was the film released?

Bride Flight was a Limited release in 2011 on Friday, June 10, 2011 . There were 7 other movies released on the same date, including Super 8 , Judy Moody And The NOT Bummer Summer and The Trip . As a Limited release, Bride Flight will only be shown in select movie theaters across major markets. Please check Fandango and Atom Tickets to see if the film is playing in your area.

Bride Flight DVD & Blu-ray Release Date: When was the film released?

Bride Flight was released on DVD & Blu-ray on Tuesday, September 20 , 2011 .

Q&A Asked about Bride Flight

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• Sat., Jul. 23, 2011 from Amazon
• added the US DVD release date of September 20, 2011
• added the US Blu-ray release date of September 20, 2011
• Fri., Jun. 10, 2011 from Exhibitor Relations
• changed the US film release date from June 3, 2011 to June 10, 2011
• Wed., Mar. 30, 2011 from Music Box Films
• set the MPAA rating to R for a strong sex scene and some graphic nudity
• added photos to the gallery
• added the tagline: "A forbidden love. An impossible choice. A secret pact."
• added a poster to the gallery
• added a running time of 130 minutes

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Bride Flight

• A romantic drama that charts the lives of three women from different backgrounds, forever changed when they emigrate to New Zealand as war brides.
• In 1953, a flood adding to the aftermath of World War II swells the numbers of Dutch emigrants. On a KLM flight to New Zealand, part of a race from London, Frank de Rooy (Waldemar Torenstra), who lost his family and colonial estate in the Japanese occupation and Indonesian civil war of Independence, meets some virtual mail order brides. Ada van Holland (Karina Smulders) becomes his lover before confessing she's already married by proxy to gloomy Calvinist Derk Visser (Micha Hulshof). Jewish concentration-camp survivor Esther Cahn (Anna Drijver) dodges her engagement for a fashion career and discreetly has her son Bobby (Mykola Allen) adopted by infertile Marjorie Mullin (Elise Shaap), who did everything else right with husband Hans (Mattijn Hartemink). Over the years, some of their paths cross again, and all of the survivors meet at Frank's funeral. — KGF Vissers

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Bride Flight

Susan granger’s review of “bride flight” (music box films).

    Inspired by the true story of the 1953 “Last Great Air Race,” this is the fictionalized tale of a trio of young, Dutch women who, eager to escape from the flooding in post-WWII Holland, emigrate on a 13,000-mile historic KLM flight from London, England, to Christchurch, New Zealand, for what they envision as a better life.

    Shy, farm-raised Ada (Karina Smulders) is already pregnant by the fiancé she met only once but during turbulence on the plane she seeks solace with Frank (Waldemar Torenstra), a rancher whose family died in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. Ada dutifully marries her fanatically pious Mennonite fiancé (Micha Hulsof), living in a bunker and bearing him several children but, over the years, her unhappiness grows, and she stealthily maintains secret correspondence with Frank, who now has a vineyard.

    Feisty, chain-smoking Esther (Anna Drijver) is an aspiring fashion designer whose Jewish family was killed during the Holocaust.  She’s distressed to discover that her strict fiancé insists that she keep a kosher kitchen and observe all religious customs, so that marriage is doomed. Besides, she’s also pregnant by another man.  Then there’s earthy Marjorie (Elise Schaap), who yearns for children but discovers that she cannot bear them. So Esther gives her biological child to Marjorie and her husband, but she never relinquishes that son from her heart, feeling guilty because he’s not being raised with knowledge of his Jewish heritage.

    Directed by Ben Sombogaart from a cliché-drenched screenplay by Marieke van der Pol, it’s a decade-spanning, multi-generational melodrama, as the intertwined lives of the three, now-70 year-old women cross once again at Frank’s funeral – and each reaches her own resolution and redemption. The older trio is played by Pleuni Touw, Willeke van Ammelrooy and Petra Laseur with Rutger Hauer appearing in a cameo as Frank. Years ago, this kind of chick flick would be called a “weepie.”

    In Dutch with English subtitles, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Bride Flight” is an engrossing, if sudsy 6, a nostalgic glimpse into tangled destinies.