Rating 5/10
Exclamation points in movie titles suggest a certain desperation to me. Like the studio was worried audiences might disregard the name unless it literally shouts at them from the poster. Occasionally, the confidence is justified: Oliver!, Oklahoma!, Help!, and Airplane! have all aged well. The Bride! arrives with the same breathless punctuation, though I doubt it will ever occupy the same pantheon of films.
In 1936 Chicago, a woman named Ida (Jessie Buckley) is killed by mob associates after publicly accusing crime boss Vito Lupino (Zlatko Burić) of his activities during a restaurant confrontation. Ida’s outburst is influenced by the spirit of Mary Shelley (also played by Jessie Buckley), who has temporarily possessed her in order to provoke the incident. After Ida’s death, the creature Victor Frankenstein created now calls himself Frank (Christian Bale). He goes to reanimation scientist Dr. Cornelia Euphronius (Annette Bening) and asks her to create a companion for him after more than a century of isolation.
Using Ida’s corpse, Euphronius successfully brings her back to life. A stylized ink smudge from the laboratory fluid used during the revival process blots her cheek. Frank quickly becomes attached to the revived woman. Ida has no memory of who she once was, so he calls her the Bride, and the two leave Chicago and travel toward New York. They navigate a new existence while authorities begin to take notice. Their relationship attracts wider attention and unrest.
This reimagining of the Frankenstein myth is a feminist tale about women who demand to be taken seriously. The ghost of Mary Shelley possesses the body of a 1930s woman, Ida, who ultimately becomes Frank’s mate. Dr. Cornelia Euphronius, a scientist working in a male-dominated profession, creates a partner for the monster. Frank initially believes the researcher he seeks is a man and is surprised to discover that the doctor is, in fact, a woman. There is also Myrna Malloy (Penélope Cruz), a detective who investigates Frank and the Bride. She is working alongside Officer Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard), but she is predictably the brains of the duo. Myra blows everyone’s mind at a crime scene when she proudly announces that she, yes, she, is the detective in charge of the investigation.
You will immediately pinpoint the picture’s themes because they are hammered repeatedly. The feminist ideas feel grafted on to give pseudo-weight to this hollow shell of a narrative. Yet the uncomfortable reality is that there is much physical abuse. Watching actress Jessie Buckley get punched and manhandled, I felt sorry for her in the same way I sympathized with poor Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hateful Eight. Buckley is slammed into walls and pushed down a flight of stairs. At least she manages to fight back. In one scene, she wrestles an attacker to the ground and bites out his tongue. Quite the charmer. The production admittedly has more on its mind than mere violence, but it depressingly dwells on it.
Director Maggie Gyllenhaal abandons the discipline she showed in her stunning debut, The Lost Daughter. Here she stitches together wildly different tones of comedy, drama, romance, and crime, while pulling influences from other movies along the way. The film evokes Bonnie and Clyde as Frank and the Bride become lovers on the run. It nods to Young Frankenstein when Christian Bale’s Frank joins a high-energy nightclub dance to “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” It incorporates other dark musical flourishes reminiscent of Joker: Folie à Deux. One imagines Lady Gaga lamenting that she didn’t land this role. It works better than the one she got stuck with.
In the end, The Bride! is a pastiche of influences and ideas that add up to very little. None of it coalesces into anything that engages the emotions. The film aims to present a rebellious “us against the world” romance, but it never settles into a captivating tone. By the time the 1962 Halloween novelty song “The Monster Mash” plays over the credits, the choice feels laughable. This truly is a monster mash…up.
03-10-26