Taking the 'Bride Flight' to passion
Bride Flight, inspired by the cataclysmic North Sea Flood of 1953, is about the story of mass emigration of young Dutch women to New Zealand after the flood. Credit: Stephen Parks's film review - 2010 Stony Brook Film Festival ltc
Grounded in historical fact but all aflutter with romantic fiction, "Bride Flight" follows three women who leave post-World War II Holland for a better life in New Zealand. What they find are pre-picked husbands, small towns and provincial attitudes -- in other words, a perfect backdrop for grand and illicit passions.
En route to Christchurch, the women trade stories: Marjorie (Elise Schaap) is looking forward to raising a family; Esther (Anna Drijver) hides her Jewishness under a cosmopolitan veneer; Ada (Karina Smulders) is a glowing blonde about to marry into a religious community where black coats and frowning are the fashion.
Sitting in Ada's row is Frank (Waldemar Torenstra), a toothsome golden boy whose picturesque future already includes a vineyard and a villa. There's instant attraction between the gourmet farmer and the ripening peach, and the mile-high moments they share will resonate even after they say goodbye at the baggage claim.
What follows is strictly soap-opera stuff -- adultery, pregnancies, fistfights, catfights -- though screenwriter Marieke van der Pol and director Ben Sombogaart bring intelligence and a measure of subtlety to the histrionics. The cast is fine, particularly Smulders as the repressed but erotically charged Ada, and Torenstra is appealing as her understandably smitten suitor.
"Bride Flight" takes its name from an actual KLM plane that flew the Last Great Air Race of 1953, though little is said of it once the thing lands and the story lines begin. It's an accurately detailed bodice, there primarily for the ripping.
RATING R (sexuality, language, brief violence)
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