Bride Flight

Bride Flight gives a panoramic sweep of lives as they're lived, as there is a lot of beauty in it.

Best enjoyed as a lavish period travelogue whose story is dwarfed by its panoramic overview.

Switching between the 1950s, the '60s, and the present, it's compelling in a middling miniseries kind of way – expansive but not terribly deep.

The beauty of the actors and the ravishing landscape of New Zealand goes a long way to make Ben Sombogaart's sudsy film so eminently watchable.

Trauma from WWII haunts each character, but even the historical foregrounding doesn't keep Ben Sombogaart's weepie from being more soapy than serious.

The sort of sweeping romantic saga rarely attempted on our shores these days, Bride Flight should well please art house audiences, especially of older females, starved for this sort of old-fashioned fare.

Smug and unconvincing.