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Bride of the Wind

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 26 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 1 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Marilyn Levy
Directed by: Bruce Beresford
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 8, 2001
DVD: November 13, 2001
Running Time: 99 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R
Starring Sarah Wynter, Jonathan Pryce, and Vincent Perez
A romantic portrait of Alma Mahler, an extraordinary woman who inspired, bedeviled and captivated the artistic geniuses of her age. (Paramount Classics)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Double Jeopardy Evelyn Paradise Road
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It's a movie of elegant surfaces, great background music (by both the Mahlers), gossipy underpinnings and pretensions to romantic grandeur.
Miami Herald Connie Ogle
The music is of course majestic, blending well with a loving cinematography.
Boston Globe Jay Carr
Botches the chance to delve into the personality of a complex, alluring, and free-spirited woman.
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
The stifling piety of this film -- which regards anything old and vaguely arty as next to sacred -- needs some serious airing out.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
She is known as one of the great muses, yet director Bruce Beresford, Wynter and screenwriter Marilyn Levy are never clear if this is by design or chance.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
There's great music and lovely settings, but the filmmakers have done little more with their subject than reiterate the Britannica's description of her.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
For all the talk of artistic and amorous passion, the film is trapped in snobbish inertia; its idea of period drama amounts to a kind of highbrow name- dropping.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Was Alma a masochist? Repressed? Neurotic? A pre-feminist? Don't look for insight here.
Washington Post Philip Kennicott
It has moments of humor, some of them intentional, and it occasionally tugs at the heartstrings. Yet it ultimately makes real history feel ridiculously improbable.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Stiff but handsome film, there's little sense of the conflict and complexities that drove Alma Mahler.
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
Mildly entertaining, offering generous swaths of Mahler performed by the Bratislava Philharmonic, but it's also inescapably ponderous.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
A standard-issue fin de siècle costume parade, simplifying every dramatic transaction to a torpid minimum but never answering its own looming "why": Why Alma?
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman
Somehow the film doesn't quite cohere; it's hobbled by its awkward exposition, with salient facts about the characters' lives.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The movie fails to make Alma a vivid presence -- She deserves better, and so do viewers.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
Beresford, can't bring this saga to life because Alma herself never fully comes to life; her contradictoriness, like the way she embraces Mahler only to rail against his "Jewish music," doesn't add up to a whole and complex human being.
Read Full Review >USA Today Staff [Not Credited]
Stuffing painters, writers and, naturally, Gustav Mahler (Jonathan Pryce) into about 90 minutes, the film comes off as little more than a handsomely mounted scorecard of sexual escapades.
Washington Post Desson Thomson
A fascinating premise. And yet, the movie, directed by Bruce Beresford, never quite blooms.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Ms. Wynter's performance is only one of many failings in a heavily accented costume drama that Bruce Beresford has directed turgidly from Marilyn Levy's amateurish script.
New Times (L.A.) Bill Gallo
Moviegoers might have preferred a little more care with the characters. As it is, Alma comes off not as a courageous trailblazer but as an indiscriminate adventuress.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
Director Bruce Beresford -- not intending to be funny but succeeding wildly.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Joshua Kosman
The only performer who breathes any life into the proceedings is Vincent Perez.
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
Slow as a funeral dirge, the movie's all talk about art and passion and obsession without anything to show for it.
Variety Robert Koehler
An odd case of filmmaking with a crystal-clear subject but no guiding dramatic premise.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie has three tones: overwrought, boring, laughable.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Sam G-Z gave it an 8:
I really enjoyed this movie because it sparked my interest in Alma Mahler. After learning more about her, however, I don't believe it had enough purposeful clarification of her character and point-of-view, only explanation of what happened to her. Still, I highly recommend it for the brilliant musical and visual atmosphere (captivating recreation of fin-de-siecle Vienna) and the effective portrayal of Alma's relationships with Mahler and Kokoschka.
