Bride Flight Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Bride Flight Blu-ray Movie Review

A flight for three almost wives.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 17, 2011

It’s funny how one film can be reminiscent of another despite only tenuous connections between the two. One of the most expensive Dutch language films in history, Bride Flight made a little news when it was released for welcoming Rutger Hauer back to his native country’s film industry after several decades (albeit in a brief cameo), but for those with an even longer memory, the film is oddly akin to the 1949 American melodrama A Letter to Three Wives. That film, which somewhat improbably won Academy Awards for writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz (as well as Mankiewicz’s co-writer Vera Caspary), was a sometimes turgid piece that recounted the intersecting stories of three women who each receive a letter from a fourth woman alerting them to the fact that the letter writer has taken off with one of their husbands. (True aficionados will know that the film somewhat humorously trimmed the original source novel’s Five Wives down to three, as if that made the whole affair angle somewhat more palatable). Mankiewicz’s film then revisits each of the three women’s marriages via flashback, getting into some at times pretty unseemly material that may have seemed slightly shocking to 1949 audiences. Few will probably be overly shocked by Bride Flight, a film which takes that same idea of three women whose lives intersect, and which likewise dissects that intersection via a flashback device, though Bride Flight is of course a product of its time and therefore is able to work in a fairly steamy sex scene which would have never been allowed in 1949. Bride Flight actually is at least tangentially anchored to a real life plot device, a 1953 air race from London to Christchurch, New Zealand. The film uses the KLM plane which won that race as the starting point to introduce us to three expatriate women who are all leaving the ruins of their post-World War II lives to forge a new existence in the exotic climes of New Zealand.

This is one of those films which wants to tug at the heartstrings (and actually does so a time or two), but which may strike some who have a more cynical outlook as being unintentionally hilarious at times. We meet shy and repressed Ada (Karina Smulders), a sweet young thing who has never left home before and who more or less instantly falls in love with her seat mate, the dashing Frank (Waldemar Torenstra, the same role played by Hauer in the present day). Frank and Ada make goo-goo eyes at each other until their passion erupts at a brief touchdown in Pakistan, where Frank brings Ada briefly to her senses (“Do you want to spend the rest of your life in Pakistan?”), just before Ada brings Frank to his senses by revealing she’s already more or less married (she’s pre-betrothed, as it were) to an uptight Calvinist in New Zealand with whom she is obviously not in love, though she is in fact already pregnant with his child. Also on the flight is Jewish fashion designer Esther (Anna Drijver), a chain smoking quasi-harridan who is running from the horrors of the Holocaust and can’t quite see herself settling down with her betrothed, a ferociously observant Jew who expects her to be a proper Jewish wife. Esther and Frank also have an illicit liaison (Frank is busy in this film), one which the film doesn’t explain very well but which has some melodramatic consequences (are there any other kind in a film of this ilk?). The third wheel in this rather odd trio is Marjorie (Elise Schaap), the only one of the three who seems ready and able to make the transition to a New Zealand lifestyle.

Bride Flight actually starts in the present day, with the death of Frank (that’s Hauer’s very brief cameo), which of course brings the three women together again at his funeral, and which reignites the memories of what has happened, and how their lives have strangely intertwined over the years. The film ping-pongs back and forth between “now” and “then,” showing us what has become to the three women (other actresses play the roles as elderly women), while exploring their youthful decisions (and, frankly, indiscretions) which color much of what happened to them later in life. Set amid some jaw droppingly beautiful scenery in New Zealand, the film is at times a rather interesting and compelling look at an expatriate class of Dutch people who have made the perhaps odd decision to recast their lives in a completely foreign environment, and it’s in fact in this element that Bride Flight may have its most fundamentally appealing aspect.

As a drama, though, the film is a good deal dicier, with some florid dialogue, even more florid situations, and a sex scene that might be better placed in a soft core porn feature than a glossy romantic drama. Bride Flight will nonetheless appeal a lot to those who like torrid yet repressed romances set against exotic locales with a dash of history thrown in. There’s absolutely nothing in these three women’s lives that astute viewers won’t see coming from a mile off, but the performances are generally strong, and the production design rather capably captures New Zealand in the early 1950’s. There is an element of the unseemly undercutting quite a bit of the film, from Ada’s loveless (and actually abusive) marriage, to Esther’s self-imposed conflict with her Judaism, to a somewhat silly "secret" adoption subplot that seems ripped from a daytime soap opera’s machinations, but the film is often gorgeous to behold, which may at least partially ameliorate the melodrama which is as vast and wide in Bride Flight as the New Zealand horizon.

Bride Flight Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bride Flight wings its way onto Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.30:1. This is a sumptuous looking production which wears its large budget rather prominently on its cinematography sleeve, and the incredible location footage taken around New Zealand pops magnificently on this Blu-ray. Depth of field is exceptional, colors are extremely robust and accurate, and fine detail is excellent. Some of the studio bound footage doesn't quite pop as vividly as this location footage does, but it still maintains often well above average fine detail, and appealingly saturated colors. The film is skewed toward the yellow end of the spectrum quite a bit of the time, especially in the flashback sequences, and that casts the film in a soft amber glow that does add a bit of gauziness to the image. Overall, though, this presentation suffers from very few compression artifacts and looks wonderfully sharp and well defined.

Bride Flight Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The audio specs listed above may be slightly misleading. While there is indeed a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, there is only one track, which is in both Dutch and English. The Dutch language segments offer optional English subtitles, but what some astute listeners may realize almost right off the bat is how amazingly similar Dutch and English are. It's actually possible to make out the broad outlines of what many of the exchanges in Dutch are without the subtitles. All of this said, the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is very well done, even if it doesn't present enormous opportunities for impressive surround activity. Occasional very well done sound effects populate the side and rear channels, notably in the long flight sequences, and especially in a couple of storm segments within those sequences. Otherwise, surround activity is limited mostly to ambient environmental effects, which are reproduced very well throughout the film. Dialogue is clear and crisp and always easy to hear and the overall mix, while not in the summer blockbuster variety, is certainly more than capable and well above average.

Bride Flight Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Bride Flight (1080i; 24:01). Well, evidently the Dutch also make these fairly standard EPK-fests, except they also include scenes of principal actors relieving themselves outside of the soundstage ("to save time"), while simultaneously interviewing said actor. Fascinating.
• Screenwriter Interview (1080i; 5:35) is an interesting albeit rather brief sit down with Marieke von der Pol, who talks about using the real life "Last Great Air Race" as the jumping off point for her screenplay.
• Trailer (HD; 00:53)

Bride Flight Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

At the risk of sounding politically incorret, Bride Flight is a quintessential "chick flick," one which will appeal to those who like their emotions writ large, albeit suppressed at times, across a broad historical canvas. The most interesting thing about this film is the aspect of the Dutch moving to New Zealand in the early 1950's, which unfortunately isn't explored very much as a cultural phenomenon in and of itself. Instead we get these three at times very florid stories interwoven with each other with middling results. The film is often quite gorgeous, especially with regard to its New Zealand location footage, which helps to smooth out some of the rough dramatic edges. Recommended.