Bride Flight Reviews
December 13, 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.
July 14, 2011
This very pretty melodrama is a rather ordinary entry.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
July 6, 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.
June 30, 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
June 24, 2011
Lovely scenery and historical context elevate the sentimental story lines above the soap opera domain.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
June 24, 2011
A tearjerking romance that belongs to another era, when female moviegoers wanted to be transported, not grounded in grim realities.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
June 23, 2011
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
June 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
June 16, 2011
One should never discount the appeal of pretty people in pretty places.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
June 16, 2011
It's compelling in a middling miniseries kind of way -- expansive but not terribly deep.
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
June 13, 2011
This Dutch melodrama compels despite its formulaic elements.
June 10, 2011
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!"
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
June 10, 2011
Sombogaart approaches his soapy subject with just enough restraint. As a result, you can convince yourself it's a highbrow arthouse film even as you're swooning and sniffling over so many tangled love stories.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
June 10, 2011
The kind of lush, epic romantic weepie that Hollywood used to deliver on a regular basis for packed matinees at Radio City Music Hall.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
June 9, 2011
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.
Original Score: 3/5
June 9, 2011
Bride Flight gives a panoramic sweep of lives as they're lived, as there is a lot of beauty in it.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
June 9, 2011
The subtitles and period setting conjure a smattering of respectability, but in essence, this is arthouse pap, particularly for older audiences, turning the past into a concatenation of worn-out tropes that comforts as it distorts.
Original Score: C
June 8, 2011
Bride Flight is the most lavishly entertaining Dutch film since Paul Verhoeven's fabulous The Black Book.
Original Score: 3/4
June 8, 2011
A sometimes silly but enjoyable experience.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
June 7, 2011
The flashbacks dominate, playing like wet-inked storyboards: pioneer women forced into patriarch games; a baby born in secrecy and raised in deceit; Jewish legacy lost and found.