Movie Review: ‘The Bride!’

Plot: In 1936 Chicago, the spirit of Mary Shelley possesses the body of party goer Ida (Jessie Buckley) in hopes of spreading the “real” story she wanted to tell after her seminal work Frankenstein was published. However, when the possessed Ida immediately reveals in public the crimes of Mob boss Lupino (Zlatko Buric), Lupino’s goons have her killed. Meanwhile, across town, Frankenstein’s monster “Frank” (Christian Bale) seeks the help of Dr. Cornelia Euphronius (Annette Bening). After a century of loneliness, he implores her to make him a companion. Subsequently, the pair dig up and revive Ida, only to discover that her memory is gone. What ensues is a rollicking ride of wanton self-discovery as Frank and his Bride violently traverse the East Coast, leaving destruction in their wake and igniting a social revolution.

Review: If you’ve followed my reviews for any length of time, you know I appreciate bold, daring, and avant-garde filmmaking. We live in a cinema age where most studios are risk-averse and obsessed with exploiting every corner of every IP for maximum profit. They revel in and perpetuate an endless succession of sequels regardless of quality. To the majority of film execs, originality must seem quaint, even obsolete. Suffice it to say, I will always prefer a profound swing for the fences rather than regurgitated pablum.

When I first saw a trailer for writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! Several months ago, I was immediately intrigued. Not only did it sport an insanely talented cast with Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley leading the way, but it also looked frenetic, kinetic, and above all, unique. I’ve always adored Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and its multiple cinematic iterations. Hell, we just got a new edition in the traditional vein from Guillermo Del Toro only a few short months ago. But this looked different. Couple these elements with the fact that this was Maggie Gyllenhaal’s follow-up to her stunning directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, and my curiosity was sufficiently piqued.

Yet there’s a danger with those aforementioned big swings. Not all of them are going to be colossal clouts. You must be prepared for the occasional whimpering whiff. Sadly, writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s latest The Bride! is a titanic swing and a miss. It’s a strikeout of epic proportions I was not expecting.

The most glaring issue is that the movie is tonally inconsistent. It has zero idea of what it wants to be. At certain moments, it’s a feminist empowerment story about taking back your own agency. Buckley’s Ida clearly represents a woman subject to the whims of others, a “good time gal” that’s objectified by the men around her. It’s an obvious criticism of patriarchal structures, with her rebirth as the Bride a catalyst for finding her voice and place in the world outside of male dominance. Yet if that’s the case, then why trap her in a relationship with Frank that’s based on a lie? It seems counterintuitive.

The Bride! also explores violence against women by men, even going so far as to mention the Me Too Movement, which seems odd considering it’s supposed to be 1936. (Additionally, Penelope Cruz’s Myrna at one point also mentions female astronauts, so this movie is rife with anachronisms.) Yet even that topic never moves beyond the surface level. Simultaneously, The Bride! aspires to be a 1930s outlaw film in the vein of Terrence Malick’s Badlands or Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde. Hell, there’s even multiple references to Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, complete with a dance number and Bale screaming “Puttin’ on the Ritz!” in an eerie imitation of Peter Boyle.

All of these disparate parts result in a frenetic Frankenstein mishmash of tropes and half-baked ideas that never coalesce into anything coherent. So much so that one wonders if that was actually Gyllenhaal’s intent. Is The Bride! meant to resemble Victor Frankenstein’s actual pieced-together monster? While I admire the hutzpah, the end result makes for a script and a film that’s a muddled mess that never animates beyond a sixteen-year-old Goth girl’s idea of feminism. Please don’t misunderstand me. Heady topics like female agency, female empowerment, male violence against women, the Me Too movement, et al, are vital, important subjects that deserve attention. However, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s approach is so decidedly hamfisted, pretentious, and unsubtle that the messages come off heavy-handed and pedantic.

Now this isn’t to say that The Bride! is a complete lost cause. Oscar-nominated cinematographer Lawrence Sher (Joker) puts in a stupendous effort that elevates the material. He captures the essence of 1930s Americana and the industrious nature of cities like Chicago and New York at that time. The look and feel of Howard Hawks’ 1932 masterpiece Scarface was clearly an influence. Sandy Powell’s brilliant costumes and Karen Murphy’s excellent production design also add a distinct element of verisimilitude. These elements are complemented by yet another solid score from Hildur Guonadottir that’s equal parts melancholy, magnetic, and electrifying.

Furthermore, both Bale and Buckley bring their A-game. Bale showcases a desperate, lonely, and empathetic monster who’s willing to do anything for companionship, even if it means lying to the woman he loves. There’s a humanity to Bale’s portrayal that I couldn’t help but admire. It runs the gamut from the deepest levels of human compassion to the darkest depths of extreme violence. A sequence where he meets his idol, actor Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal), was absolutely heartbreaking and reminds audiences why Bale is one of the best working today. His chemistry with Jessie Buckley is undeniable.

Buckley, meanwhile, is an absolute force of nature. Her performance is bold, brash, kinetic, and fearless. It is no small feat to have to play essentially three different characters: Mary Shelley, Ida, and the Bride, and even more difficult to occasionally switch between them from one sentence to the next. Yet Buckley makes it look effortless. To me, the mark of a great actor is whether you can still stand out in a bad movie. Buckley does just that, and despite my multiple problems with The Bride!, Buckley is not one of them. In fact, it may be the only thing worth watching about The Bride! and I would not be a bit surprised if her performance garners her another Oscar nomination next year.

With Frank and The Bride’s story comprising the majority of the film, unfortunately, most of the other characters in Gyllenhaal’s movie are given short shrift. Cruz, Sarsgaard, and Jake Gyllenhaal are underdeveloped and borderline wasted in The Bride! That’s quite an amazing feat considering the talent involved.

There’s one final element of The Bride! that I really took issue with. Full disclosure: I completely recognize that my thoughts on this matter are biased because of my love of the source material, yet it doesn’t prevent me from feeling the way I feel. The impetus for Gyllenhaal telling this story stems from the opening scenes, where we meet Mary Shelley in the afterlife. Her reason for wanting to possess someone in 1930s Chicago is because she believes people have misinterpreted her seminal work, and the Bride’s story is the actual one she wants to tell. This is borderline literary sacrilege in my opinion. It takes a special level of purebred, dyed-in-the-wool narcissism by Maggie Gyllenhaal to believe such profound pablum and an equal level of arrogance to think you can make others agree through blunt force filmmaking.

Despite how much I despised The Bride! I have no doubt this film will go on to become a cult movie in certain circles. However, to quote our titular heroine, if anyone asked me if I wanted to watch The Bride! again, my response would be, “I prefer not to.”

My rating system:

1 God Awful Blind Yourself With Acid Bad

2 Straight Garbage

3 Bad

4 Sub Par

5 Average

6 Ok

7 Good

8 Great

9 Excellent

10 A Must See

Masterpiece

The Bride!: 3/10