Bride of the Wind (2001)

Idea: The story of Alma Mahler's (Sarah Wynter) many love affairs: her first husband, composer Gustav Mahler (Jonathan Pryce); expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka (Vincent Perez); architect Walter Gropius (Simon Verhoeven); and writer Franz Werfel (Gregor Seburg).

I've wanted to see this movie since OAC, when I first listened to Gustav Mahler's music. I was always supposed to tell Mr. Nicholas what I thought of the movie, and I am sure that I will should I ever see him again.

The title, taken from one of Kokoschka's paintings of the two lovers, fills the movie with much more promise than it can deliver.

Wynter, who I rather enjoyed as Kate on the second season of 24, is so very disappointing here. It occurs to me now that I may have just liked Kate because she understood the show's underlying principle of "trust in Jack." Here, however, Wynter gave me no reason to care about what happened to Alma at any point. Her Alma was basically a big ho. She hopped right into bed with a number of men, and then would suddenly claim that they were "stifling" her. The problem was that the audience had no evidence that Alma was being stifled except once. In that case, there were multiple ways she could have gotten around it, so she really didn't have any reason to be so angry. Wynter's Alma was beautiful and out-spoken enough to understand why she initially attracted so many men but never clever or cunning enough to understand how she kept them or herself, for that matter. She was just boring.

As was pretty much the rest of the movie, except for maybe Perez's Kokoschka. Everyone kept referring to Alma's as so passionate (while I found her terribly dull and overly naked), but Perez actually had the goods to carry that title. Kokoschka also most seemed like the one who least tried to "stifle" her in anyway, and he, in my opinion, suffered the most for it.

Although director Bruce Beresford has had some success in his past (Driving Miss Daisy, And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself), he's also had some stupendous clunkers (Her Alibi, Last Dance). This movie falls into the latter category. Given such an exciting premise, Beresford just can seem to get this movie off the ground.

Of course, he can share the blame with Marilyn Levy, who wrote the somewhat insane dialogue. Levy, after all, is the one who had Alma constantly proclaiming about how "stifling" she felt it all to be. I find consolation in the fact that she hasn't written anything else before or since.

I've said it before, and I'm going to have to say it again. If the movie can't give you a reason to care, it has failed its audience. D