Zandy's Bride (1974)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Absolutely Brilliant!

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Gene Hackman was so prolific that even though he has retired from acting for over a decade you can still find a new performance from him even if it is some old, obscure film.This is a bleak, dark but vacant Scandi-drama decades before they came in vogue with added crime mysteries.Gene Hackman is a rugged rancher in the Big Sur. This is an isolated and backward community. A wilderness. He has ordered a mail order bride from Scandinavia. The main reason is that he wants sons who would take over the ranch from him before he gets too old.When the wife arrives he effectively treats her as a slave and even forces himself on her. This is a tell it how it was in the old days in the 19th century.Liv Ullmann plays his wife and she does not take it lying down and is determined to turn the farm into a home and turn him into somewhat respectable. Susan Tyrell plays a floozy that Hackman seems to have has past dalliance with. Hackman is wary of her, this is a clannish community with hints of inbreeding. Hackman does not want bad blood hence why he has got a wife from the outside.There is an outdoor barbecue scene where we learn a little about this isolated community and also Hackman's family life. If you think Hackman is bad, he is a progressive compared to his father. Hackman's mother is very much aware what Ullman is going through and knows how hard life and her own husband has been to her.Hackman and Ullman resolve to make their marriage work and she rewards him with issue. In turns he softens a little, he gets her nice clothes and even a stove from San Francisco.The film is a slow burn drama but not much action. For those of us, myself included whose only experience of The Big Sur is the coastal route to LA to San Francisco or vice-versa this is an insight to a real community that once lived beyond the roads.The film is rewarded with wonderful photography but the film feels empty despite rich performances.

This is a profoundly realistic and perfectly-acted story that goes much beyond the previous commenter's assertion. It is a portrait of far west ranch life at its most primal and difficult. Love was not the issue in that world. The cinematography and direction were also great. Gene Hackman and Liv Ullman are subtle actors who deliver in this overlooked but wonderful film. Although I only saw it once, the dramatic intensity and truthfulness of the tale stayed with me. I've always remembered this film, as standing outside the norm. The visual memory is black and white, though I think the film is in color. The few but intense human connections were poignant, the imagery lasting.

Zandy's Bride is quite interesting because it deals with a theme that has become relevant again in the 21st century. It's about a mail order bride, and of course with the introduction of the Internet into the majority of modern homes, the idea shopping for a wife has once again reared its ugly head. Beyond the topicality, however, the film is a failure on most other counts.Gene Hackman plays a rough and rugged pioneer living on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. He is waiting around for a mail order bride from Scandinavia, and when she arrives he mistreats her. It's not that he's a nasty man, more that he has lived a simple and uncomplicated life and he finds it hard to relate properly to another human being (especially of the opposite sex) after so many years of labouring away in such lonely surroundings.The bride is played well by Liv Ullmann. The backdrop to the film is beautifully captured. Beyond the performances and the scenery, there's not much else to hold the attention. It's a boring film, critically hindered by the fact that it has too little to say and no notable plot to follow through to a logical conclusion. The unsuited pair meet, fall out a lot, and that's just about it. As much as I admire Hackman (worth watching in all his films... a real consummate actor), this one just isn't worth the effort. Skip it.

I really enjoyed this movie. It reminds me of some of the romance novels that I've read, especially those by Maggie Osborne. She writes very nice western themed romances. Like hers, this movie starts off with an unlikely pair who fall in love eventually after the usual stuff...cheating, overcoming stubbornness, and so on. Just a nice, entertaining and endearing movie that should be thought of and viewed as just that.