The Bride! review: A bold swing that never hits its stride
The Bride of Frankenstein has been depicted on film before but had barely any screen time and certainly no agency, so Maggie Gyllenhaal tries to right this wrong by giving her a voice in The Bride!
Probable Best Actress Oscar winner Jessie Buckley stars as an outspoken woman named Ida, who is murdered for her loose lips. Her corpse is reanimated by Dr. Cornelia Euphronius (Annette Bening) at the behest of Frank, aka Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale), as he is lonely and desperate for a companion. The duo unwittingly embark on a Bonnie & Clyde-style crime spree in Chicago and New York in the 1930s, followed by detectives Jake and Myrna (Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz).
Buckley doesn’t just play Ida and the Bride, she also portrays an unexpected third character, Frankenstein author Mary Shelley. Shelley appears onscreen in black and white flashes, and her common British voice bursts out of American Ida/Bride’s mouth often, like she’s a schizophrenic voice in her head. I hated this element of the film with a passion. I didn’t get what Gyllenhaal was trying to say with it and it’s not executed well either. The use of Shelley is a bit easier to shallow in the second half of the film, but it is weird, jarring and frankly grating for the most part, particularly in the opening.
Buckley is sensational as the wild, unhinged live-wire who switches between accents at a moment’s notice. She is confused, full of rage and can’t remember anything from her former life. While I could have done without the Mary Shelley element, I can’t deny that she has a very difficult job trying to play three characters, especially two that seem to be warring with themselves. She would have been even better if she had been given less to do. The performance is big, maybe too big for some, but did we really expect the Bride to be subtle and realistic?! She looks fantastic, with memorable white blonde hair and black splotches tattooed on her skin, and stands out in the quiet moments when she’s trying to figure out who she is and what she wants.
Bale doesn’t fare quite as well. Even though I wasn’t expecting subtlety, his performance felt shouty and ill-fitting. His prosthetics are awesome though and I liked the moments when he dreams himself into his movie idol Ronnie Reed’s (Jake Gyllenhaal‘s) pictures. I would have actually liked a few more seconds of these fake films – there’s not enough of him!
I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to the Joker films and can see where this has come from, even though it’s pretty reductive. Two mentally ill people come together to form a romantic relationship, there are fantasy musical numbers (although The Bride actually only has one proper number and it’s pure dance, so rumours of a musical have been greatly exaggerated), there are copycats and they have the same cinematographer and composer. The Bride! is nowhere near as boring as Folie A Deux but it’s a mess that loses sight of what it’s trying to say.
Considering they’re on a violent crime spree, it should feel exciting, thrilling and propulsive, but it never fully takes off.
In cinemas from Friday 6th March