Bride Flight

KEY POINTS:

• Francesca Rudkin reviews new Dutch movie Bride Flight (+video)

Rating:

* * *

Verdict:

A local connection helps this lengthy melodrama along.

A Dutch film that will have local interest, this gentle, melodramatic romance is inspired by the fascinating true story of the last great air race from London to Christchurch in 1953.

It's the romanticised story of three young women on board the winning KLM passenger plane dubbed the "bride flight", filled with young Dutch women travelling to New Zealand to be with their already settled fiancees.

Shy country girl Ada (Karina Smulders) is on her way to the West Coast to join her husband, a strictly religious man she hardly knows. Sensible Marjorie (Elise Schaap) is desperate to start a family as soon as she's married, and fashion designer Esther (Anna Drijver) is determined to avoid settling down, and exchanges family for a career.

They come from different backgrounds, and have different motivations for emigrating, but the girls, especially Marjorie and Esther, become friends as they adjust to their new lives, where everything is more "casual", on the other side of the world. It's not until they reunite 50 years later at the funeral of another fellow passenger, Frank (Hauer), that they realise just how intertwined their lives have been.

Bride Flight

flicks back and forward between the present where the film starts, and the past (the 50s and 60s), and at times it gets a little confusing in terms of time and location. Parochial as it may be, it's always a treat to see NZ on the big screen, though it can also be distracting and confusing - are they really taking a day trip from Wellington to Rotorua to see the thermal activity?

Ada, Esther and Marjorie all have their fair share of heartache and drama, and are well represented by the actors playing them as young and older women. Waldemar Torenstra is cast as the young Frank, and though he fulfills the hunk criteria there is something too enthusiastic about his performance, and love of rugby, which is hard to reconcile with the more heartfelt and drama-laden female stories.

Francesca Rudkin

Cast:

Rutger Hauer

Director:

Ben Sombogaart

Running Time:

131 mins

Rating:

R13 (violence & sex scenes)