Courtney Howard // Film Critic
THE BRIDE!
Rated R, 2 hour and 6 minutes
Directed by: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Starring: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Annette Bening, Peter Sarsgaard, Penélope Cruz, John Magaro, Jeannie Berlin, Matthew Maher, Zlatko Buric, Jake Gyllenhaal
For someone who loudly proclaims she’s got a lot to say after she’s been raised from the dead, the titular protagonist in THE BRIDE! doesn’t say much at all, at least nothing beyond what’s been covered before by tempestuous movie heroines who’ve refused to conform to societal norms. Writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s fiercely feminist spin on THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is a mixed bag of goods, offering a prickly examination of female identity, agency and autonomy through the lens of a mobster’s moll reincarnated as a headstrong hellion, whose greatest act of rebellion is falling in love with a sensitive monster. However, for all its messy blights, the proceedings spark alive during spiky, hyper-fantasmic sequences that place the spotlight on its powerhouse leading lady.
Our tale begins on a black & white prologue-ish preamble with “Frankenstein” author Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley) in late-stage dementia caused by a cancerous tumor, breaking the 4th wall and basically positing there’s a thin line between the classification of horror and love stories. Soon we’re ensconced in a world of color, in a Chicago nightclub in 1936. 20-something Ida (Buckley) is attempting to behave on a group date with two lackeys to mafia kingpin Lupino (Zlatko Buric). Trouble arises when she gets sloshed, slurps bad oysters and becomes possessed by Shelley’s spirit while at the table. Clyde (John Magaro) takes her out back to avoid her causing a scene in front of his boss. And, after getting slapped around for being mouthy, she accidentally tumbles down the stairs and dies.
Around the same time, Frank (Christian Bale) pays an unannounced visit to “mad scientist” Dr. Cornelia Euphronius (Annette Bening). Extreme loneliness and anxiety have compelled him to ask her to create a companion for him. They dig up Ida’s unmarked grave, pump her full of black goo and – badda bing, badda boom! She awakens, but with an impulsive agency and a case of amnesia. Euphronius and Frank dub her, “The Bride,” a name she’s reticent to embrace (well, until she inevitably does). The newlyweds’ newfangled bliss is cut short fast, though, when their first night out turns to violence, and they kill two handsy lowlifes. Their honeymoon then spirals further into a cop-killing spree and the couple goes on the run. Detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his secretary/ superior case partner Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz) are hot on their trail, chasing them to New York and back.
It’s a shame Gyllenhaal didn’t stage her production entirely as a one-woman show to really amp up the unhinged audacity within. Buckley could’ve tackled that challenge in her sleep. As is, she outshines everyone else in the cast and the film aches when she’s not around. That’s both a compliment to her acting chops and a fault of the material for not supporting its other players properly. While Bale infuses his iteration of Frankenstein’s Monster with nuance, vulnerability and punk rock revolt (like Boris Karloff meets Sid Vicious), he’s frequently upstaged by Buckley as his character arc takes a back seat to hers. The detectives’ narrative function drags down the story’s mounting momentum with an exposition dump by Wiles (cluing us into a late breaking, severely underdeveloped storyline) and wrapping up on a final line from Myrna that would’ve felt earned had she been shown at all conflicted. That said, Sarsgaard and Cruz share witty THE THIN MAN-style banter and chemistry.
For as visually striking as her character aesthetics are with her frizzled puff of a platinum blonde bob, black stained, heart-shaped lips and tousled burnt-sienna satin dress (a fabulous amalgamation of work from hair designer Kay Georgiou, makeup artist Nadia Stacey and costume designer Sandy Powell), The Bride’s internal drive is equally strong. We never lose sight of why she’s seeking a self-satisfying sense of reclamation while being constantly confronted by violence. Buckley is able to fashion all the primordial ooze into a wild, untamed artistic creation. She’s a sparking live-wire. Her vocal intonations and physicality change within a single scene (or moment) depending on which of the 3 skins she’s inhabiting: Shelley’s (deranged), Ida’s (demure) or The Bride’s (inquisitive yet ungovernable). Which woman’s cackle that ripples through the speakers during the film’s end credits is left up to the audience to decipher.
Gyllenhaal unearths genuine movie magic in her operatic, fearless swings incorporating the surreal and fantastical. Set pieces that tip into the bizarre, dark overtones have a kinetic rhythm and innovative cinematic language, from The Bride’s nightmares where she converses with her demon Shelley to Frank’s hallucinatory spells, as he imagines he and his lady love in his favorite movies starring his marquee idol Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal). The montage featuring the legion of ladies inspired by The Bride’s ballyhoos – maddened women who adopt her look and haunt the streets looking for chaos like ghosts of the reincarnated women she summoned in an act of rage – is poetically evocative. The film also expands in scale and emotional scope when sequences are captured in IMAX. Plus, casting Jeannie Berlin as Euphronius’ housemaid feels like a coup, as she adds a dash of levity to the proceedings.
Crafts work also earns top honors. No detail is too small. Cinematographer Lawrence Sher and production designer Karen Murphy create immersive environments, whether they be Euphronis’ art deco home quarters and grandiose penthouse lab or the underground nightclub where the fringes go to frolic. Dance choreography during the scene where Frank and his Bride crash an upper crust party incorporates killer monstrous moves. Dank, dark back alleys and hazy diners provide a noir-ish tinge to augment the atmosphere. Even the Golden Era Hollywood musical homages (that feature Julianne Hough as Gyllenhaal’s pseudo Ginger Rogers) look and feel transportive.
Gyllenhaal rather assuredly tackles themes surrounding possession with skillful aplomb, exploring the subject through Frank and the Bride’s romantic relationship, through the professional dynamic between the detective partners and through the evil, bloated mafioso wanting to hold down women’s power to speak against authority. Though she doesn’t add new commentary or complexity to the “Frankenstein myth,” her re-imagination of the iconic bride character is filled with enough spirit and spunk to conduct an electrical charge.
Grade: 3.5 out of 5
THE BRIDE opens in theaters on March 6.
