As anyone with passing knowledge of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” will eagerly tell you, ‘Frankenstein’ is actually the name of the mad scientist, not the Monster.
It’s an oft trotted out factoid that makes all the booksplaining lot feel invigorated as they bore the pants off you with familiar wisdom that doesn’t require a literature degree to acquire.
Fewer remember, however, quite how little screentime the Bride of Frankenstein got in the 1935 sequel to Frankenstein.
Despite getting central billing in the title of James Whale’s The Bride of Frankenstein, Elsa Lanchester’s shock haired bride only appeared 10 minutes before the ending as a screaming, hissing (but voiceless) creation who promptly gets snuffed out when the Monster pulls a lever to trigger the lab’s destruction.
It’s this injustice that Maggie Gyllenhaal attempts to correct with The Bride!, her second film in the director’s chair following 2021’s The Lost Daughter, which co-starred Jessie Buckley. Gyllenhaal brings Buckley along for the ride, using the glaring absence of the monstrous spouse in 1935 as a jumping off point to give the bride a voice.
Buckley plays Ida, a 1930s party gal with ties to the Chicago Mob. Possessed by the spirit of Mary Shelley (also played by Buckley), she gets murdered towards the end of a boozy evening. Enter: Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening), who has been convinced by lonely monster Frankenstein / Frank (Christian Bale, whose character has adopted his father’s name) to create him a companion. She successfully brings the corpse back to life, with Ida unable to remember who she is.
She is, however, marked with spilled stains of black chemicals on her face and still inhabited by an indignant Shelley, who was unable to publish her forbidden “real story” at the time and continues to make Re:Ida uncontrollably spurt out her exasperation from the beyond.
A cracked love story that gives a culturally enduring figure both a voice and a solid helping of modern rage? Sounds promising. Until it isn’t.
To The Bride! ’s considerable credit, it takes some big swings. A fourth wall breaking black-and-white framing device; inventive and trippy visuals; plenty of coarse language… It begins as a brash and visually intriguing romp. Sure, the period setting doesn’t feel particularly accurate, but minor niggles are eclipsed by the deranged ambition of it all and Gyllenhaal’s casting coup: Buckley!
The soon-to-be Oscar winner wastes no time in delivering a feral performance that sees her brilliantly juggle two characters and routinely tic in a form of Gothic Tourette’s. It’s exciting to watch and her barnstorming turn is worth the price of admission alone.
However, Gyllenhaal quickly succumbs to an “everything and the kitchen sink” approach to filmmaking. What starts as a ink spilling, tongue yanking, wound licking reimagining becomes a Joker: Folie à Deux coded road trip as the revived outcasts break into surreal song-and-dance routines and go all Bonnie and Clyde in their attempts to evade law enforcement (Peter Sarsgaard, Penélope Cruz).
It’s playful, but the initial punkish verve is significantly diluted by distractions – chiefly the limp detective noir subplot.
Even more frustrating is how The Bride! gestures towards female rage, righteous rebellion and irreverence but never convincingly embraces its own “disobedient geometry”, as Dr. Euphronious calls it.
It’s a tricky algebra to achieve, but coming from Gyllenhaal, who has played knotty and layered roles over her career, it is disappointing to witness the hollowness at the reanimated heart of The Bride!. Ida does become an avenger rebelling against the established male order and inspires a Joker -style revolution under the slogan “Brain Attack!”; but it goes nowhere, relying on repeated lines (“I would prefer not to”) and a generic treatment of themes of consent and female autonomy to make its point.
Not helping things are messy editing choices which reek of reshoots, and the considerable talents of cinematographer Lawrence Sher and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir only serve to echo Joker vibes, as they both worked on Todd Phillip’s DC efforts. Moreover, it becomes increasingly impossible as the runtime progresses not to think of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, which similarly drew from Shelley to explore female exploitation and empowerment through an unwillingly revived abused woman, as well as Guillermo del Toro’s recent Frankenstein, which also showed that “the dead have got something to say”.
The Bride! needed to be less scattershot and actually say something to be truly disruptive – even more so to avoid comparisons with minor and major cinematic counterparts.
What could have been the cinematic equivalent of great punk song (fierce, engaged and taut) ultimately ends up as a too well-behaved mishmash of bold ideas. It doesn’t aim to be tidy or even subtle, but Gyllenhaal mistakes chaos for subversiveness – much to this unruly film’s detriment, especially in the muted third act.
“HERE COMES THE MOTHERF*%#ING BRIDE!”, reads the film’s marketing tagline.
The Bride! earns its exclamation mark through boldness of intent and Jessie Buckley’s performance. Its shallow attempt at disobedience and failure to fully destabilize established geometry means the “MOTHERF*%#ING” remains out of reach.
The Bride! is out in cinemas now.