It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Normally I'm not one to watch romance films, but I got the chance to see this one and I am so delighted I watched it. First off the characters were portrayed excellently by the actors. I felt the young and old versions of each character were synchronized with their counterpart. I especially enjoyed Waldemar Torenstra as young Frank, he had a charm that all the female characters (and I feel the female audience) grows an attraction for. The scenery in New Zealand is beautiful and a perfect setting for an intriguing and timeless tale. The plot is full of twist and turns that are subtle yet brilliant, that keep you hooked until the end. Even though it's just over 2 hours, you don't notice. All in all a wonderful film that I can't wait to add to my collection.

Going into the screening of Bride Flight, I definitely thought it was going to be a Dutch Notebook. However, I was quickly dissuaded from this notion not too far into the film. Bride Flight can easily be placed in its own category of an intelligent, romantic story. The complexity of each character's life makes you wonder which storyline is your favorite even if they all tie back to each other. The acting and plot line are strong and although the film is over two hours, I enjoyed every minute of it. I wasn't a huge fan of The Notebook, but this is a film I wouldn't mind watching multiple times, no matter how long it is. I'm hoping everyone involved in the process of this film appear in more films I can see in the States.

The first twenty minutes I wondered which way this film was going, in more than one sense. The acting was not great, the dialogues where not convincing, the scenes in the plane where clumsy and Dutch international movie star Rutger Hauer's character died not long after the beginning. Honestly, with a few exceptions I am not very impressed by the Dutch cinema, was this another Dutch movie? Then the story started to roll and got me more in its grip. The acting was getting better, sometimes real good. What I think is a pity, is that the storyline is filled with flash forwards that do not add much to the story, which is all about the life of Dutch immigrants in New Zealand in 1953 and farther. The film could have been much better if the story was told chronologically and ended somewhere in the 70's or 80's. Now there are two actors for each character, and for me, also knowing the old respectable actors from the old days, this was sometimes quite disturbing. I found it hard to intermingle a character, I saw Willeke van Ammelrooy, not the character that grew old and looked little alike with the younger woman she once had been in the film. I had strongly the impression that the known actors where mostly used to put known names on the billboards. Their parts are relatively small and of little importance for the basic line of the story.

Especially at the beginning you have to pay good attention (at least I had to), to be able to keep track of the rest of the movie. But it was a great story, beautifully put together in an epic drama that deserves many viewers, perhaps even outside of The Netherlands. I presume it must be difficult to continuously switch between the different years that form part of this movie, therefore my compliments to the editor because he managed to do a really great job successfully. In addition the New Zealand scenery adds beautiful pictures and seamlessly fits into the overall story.Although all characters, at the end of this movie, assemble for a sad occasion, the audience's feeling at the end of the movie is not of sadness but of joy because the film tells a story of how one can turn sad decisions in one's life into good things for the future.